VMware/BladeCenter/Core Networking Question

[terry.hashley]

Hi All,

I am in an environment where we have a Cisco 4507R core which has gigabit ethernet hooked into our IBM Bladecenter H chassis. Our IBM Bladecenter has 2 cisco switches as the I/O modules for network connectivity. That said, I am having a difficult time trying to figure out why the technician who installed this bladecenter a few years ago (before I came on-board with the company) setup the configuration the way it is. Here is a diagram of the setup:

Core configuration:

Attached to Switch 1	Attached to Switch 2
interface Port-channel2 switchport switchport mode access	interface Port-channel3 switchport switchport mode access
interface GigabitEthernet5/22 description BladeCenter Switch 1 Port 17	interface GigabitEthernet5/21 description BladeCenter Switch 2 Port 17 switchport mode access channel-group 3 mode on
	interface GigabitEthernet5/19 description BladeCenter Switch 2 Port 19 switchport mode access channel-group 3 mode on

So as you can see, they didn't assign a Port-Channel to the first switch in which it appears (the reason I am finding out this weird configuration) that when we lose the cable in the first switch (the only cable in the first switch) it drops connectivity to the entire bladecenter (I think).

On the cisco modules within the Bladecenter, here is the configuration:

Switch 1	Switch 2
interface Port-channel2 switchport access vlan 2 switchport mode access switchport nonegotiate	interface Port-channel2 switchport access vlan 2 switchport trunk native vlan 2 switchport mode access switchport nonegotiat
interface GigabitEthernet0/17 - 20 (all of these are exactly the same) description extern1 - 4 switchport access vlan 2 switchport mode access switchport nonegotiate auto qos voip trust macro description cisco-switch channel-group 2 mode on spanning-tree link-type point-to-point	interface GigabitEthernet0/17 - 20 (again these are exactly the same) description extern1 - 4 switchport access vlan 2 switchport mode access switchport nonegotiate auto qos voip trust macro description cisco-switch channel-group 2 mode on spanning-tree link-type point-to-point
interface GigabitEthernet0/1 - 14 (nics to each blade, identical config) description blade1 - 14 switchport access vlan 2 switchport mode access spanning-tree bpdufilter enable	interface GigabitEthernet0/1 - 14 (nics to each blade, identical config) description blade1 - 14 switchport access vlan 2 switchport mode access spanning-tree bpdufilter enable

So with that configuration, what I would like to do is add one more link (so that each bladecenter switch has two uplinks) and then configure it to allow multiple vlan's. Right now, the vlan's that the tech configured do not match up with our environment at all. I have the 4507R as the VTP server for our environment and these bladecenter switches don't have vtp configured (as I don't want to break the configs).

All this said, I know I can just configure the external nics as trunks that allow all vlan's but I am not sure what the port-channel on the second switch is configured for. I am by no means a cisco expert, I am very far from it, so any help with this would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to break my VMware installation when I push the new configs so I am looking to everyone here for some help.

Thank You!

Terry H.

[terry.hashley]

Also, just so everyone has some more information, we have 11 VLAN's in our environment now, 1 for servers, and then the other 10 are split across our building for each department.

I would like to push these VLAN's to the bladecenter so that the environment is fully spread across all of the equipment (if that is necessary, but I am more looking at best practices).

What I would really like to know is:

• Can I create 1 port channel (call it Port-Channel 3) on both the bladecenter switches and the core
• Assign the new channel-group to the 3 existing links and 1 new link on the core as well as the blade-center
• Configure the ports as a trunk that allows all VLAN's
• And then configure each specific port on the bladecenter for each blade to attach to the servers vlan minus the first two blades which are VMware
• How do I configure the VMware servers ports? Do I put the channel group on them as well and then let the virtual switch within VMware manage itself?

Again, any help is greatly appreciated as I don't have this level of in-depth knowledge with Cisco.

[cowetacoit]

What kind of switches are in the BC? Some of the newer ones are stackable.

As far as best practices... i would recommend configuing 2 etherchannels. Bundle all 4 physical ports on each BC switch into one ether channel and connect those to different blades on the 4507. On the 4507 do the same thing, create 2 etherchannels bundling 4 ports. As far as passing vlans, make sure you configure the etherchannels as trunks and only pass the vlans that will reside within the BC and vmware. we have about 5 vlans passed to our BC for vm servers. There isn't a need to have ALL vlans on your network passed to the BC. As far as the vmware stuff goes,as long as you have the vlans trunked to the ESX/ESXi hosts, they will recognize them. When you create your vswitches be sure to create port groups for each vlan and then you can assign your vms to those port groups.