VSS question, Cat6509-E's

[latintrpt]

Hello,

I recently converted two 6509-E's to VSS running code 122-33.SXI4a.  Each chassis has two SUP's.  We are looking to install just ONE chassis in our data center till a power issue is corrected to bring the second chassis online.  My question is, when we install the SECOND chassis in our data center and fiber it up to the FIRST chassis, will the 1st original chassis stay up.  Will we lose any routing or traffic going to the 1st chassis?  The reason I ask is because we will have data center server's connected to the first chassis before the second chassis is powered up and fibered up.

Thank You

[Reza Sharifi]

Hi,

As long as your first device is switch 1, it should stay up.  Keep the second device off line, cable it up and then power it up. You now have to configure the portchannel, VSS config, etc on the second switch.  The VSS may not form correctly and if not, you have to schedule an outage window to reboot both devices and form VSS.

HTH

Reza

[latintrpt]

Well I've already done the virtual switchover so they are no longer standalone switches.  portchannel 1 being on chassis 1 and portchannel 2 being on chassis 2.  My questions is that if I only have chassis 1 online and then I want to bring chassis 2 online a month later will there be an effect on chassis 1's routing or being able to receive traffic?

[sajid_m123]

it should not be different from the scenario where one standby switch goes offline and then comes up (provided rest of the DC cabling and config is done, e.g Etherchannel for ESX or other network devices and vice versa). Only affect I see is that traffic will be sent on the links addedd to port-channels. If traffic from an access switch enters both VSS switches and exit portchannel is down then all the traffic from standby switch will pass through the VSL but there should not be any other impact. It depends if config on both ends is already done.

[sajid_m123]

Correction: "exit portchannel is down ", I mean if exit port-channel has ports enabled only on Active switch and standy does not have its ports enabled in the exit port-channel.

[sajid_m123]

I think, you can create an offlne VSS along with all the config including MEC and etc. Just shut the ports of the switch-2 . Once you have installed switch-2  and VSL is up, then just enable all its ports as switch-2 will be the standby anyway.