Can I create high availability (HA) with switches and network interface Card (NIC) bonding?
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NetworkingATE
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Can I create high availability (HA) with switches and network interface Card (NIC) bonding?
Networking, Switching, NIC, High Availability, Dell PowerConnect, Dell PowerConnect 6248
What's the best way to create high availability utilizing a couple of switches and NIC bonding? I'm looking at stacking four Dell PowerConnect 6248's, then bonding two NICs on my servers and having one NIC go to one switch and the other NIC to another switch. I'm assuming if the two switches my bonded NICs are plugged into go down, then it's game over, even though I've got two other switches in the stack still up. Is there a better way go about doing this?
ASKED: Jun 17 2009  8:46 PM GMT
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Sudhanshu
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When you stack switches up you actually don’t provide any high availability (HA) functionality but you get more number of ports with better management. You should have both the network interface cards (NICs) connect to two different switches (you use only two switches if you have less than 48 servers) or two different stacks (if you have more than 48 servers.)

Hope this helps.
Last Answered: Jun 17 2009  8:57 PM GMT by Sudhanshu   750 pts.
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Troy Tate   0 pts.  |   Jun 22 2009  7:49PM GMT

I don’t think you can bond together two nics and have them on different switches. They should be on the same switch and bonded together (trunked) on the switch side also.

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BlankReg   11280 pts.  |   Jun 23 2009  10:11PM GMT

Troy, that is not correct. Many of the Cisco switches allow you to do this. They act together as a single switch and you can trunk to different switches to produce the high availability. Now whether the Dell switches are capable of doing that, I don’t know. Probably not. You get what you pay for.

 

R0berth1   175 pts.  |   Jun 24 2009  6:09PM GMT

It will not allow youdo span switches with the trunk with PAgP, you have to change the protocol to LACP. that will allow you to have a 2 or more switch stack and have a port from each switch as a member of the portchannel.

 

Troy Tate   0 pts.  |   Jun 26 2009  5:02PM GMT

Thanks for the clarification. I was unsure about my answer so it is nice to get additional details.

 
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