Port Channel vs VPC N5K

[epeeler]

Hello,

I need to connect a server with an independent port channel directly to each of my N5K switches which are running in a vPC peer arrangement.

My question is, can I safely use the same port channel number on both nexus and keep these connections independent of each other?  I believe so, as long as I don't configure the channel interface with a vpc ID?

So basically I want to create po203 on both nexus switches but not have them in a VPC where they would interact with each other in any way.  Can I safely do this or should I just use different port channel interface number on each switch?

Thanks in advance.

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

Since you are connecting the server to 2 different 5ks, in order for the Portchannel to work it needs to be in a vPC. This way logically both 5Ks look as one device to the server.

HTH

[epeeler]

Thanks Reza, but I'm actually wanting these to act as two separate switches each with it's own port channel to this particular server.  The server itself is configured with a port-channel for each controller so they want 2 distinct port channels uplinking to the network.

I was wondering if, since I don't want these in a VPC, am I safe using the same port channel number on each 5K or will the switches still somehow try and mingle the traffic.

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

Yes, you can use the same Portchannel Id on both 5ks. Porchannel Ids are locally significant,  And yes, if you want each link in a different Portchannel connecting to a different 5k than you don't need a vPC, but not sure how fail over and redundancy will work.

HTH

[ahmedshoaib]

Hi;

Just want to understand your server have 2 connection with each Nexus 5K or 1 connection with each N5K.

If it's one connection to each Nexus 5K, and you do not want you use vPC means no need to configure the port-channel on Nexus 5K also and your server configure as active/passive interface.

If your Server have 2 connection with each Nexus 5K and you want to configure 2 separate port-channel with each Nexus 5K you can do it, even you can use same port-channel no.(Po203) due to port-channel no. is locally significance. Just need to configure port-channel without vPC.

Here my suggestion is whenever you have Server with multiple link you should configure port-channel no nexus environment & in Nexus configure port-channel with vPC which will provide you redundancy and provide double of bandwidth via load sharing on multiply links.

Thanks & Best regards;