Setting up lag

This blog does a good job of showing which ports on each fabric is used by each blade.

cosonok.blogspot.com/.../dell-m1000e-blade-enclosure-logical_22.html

Some other links that pertain to the M1000e

www.dell.com/.../blade_io_solutions_guide_v1.2_jn.pdf

www.dell.com/.../ps1q08-20070500-Loffink.pdf

www.dell.com/.../server-poweredge-m1000e-tech-guidebook.pdf

Which switches are being used with the M1000e?

If you are using for instance a M6220, and all 4 ports you are wanting to us reside on the same switch. Then the commands to create your LAG would be similar to this.

The following example shows how port 1/0/6 is

configured to port-channel 1 with LACP (dynamic LAG).

console(config)# interface gigabitethernet 1/0/6

console(config-if-1/0/6)# channel-group 1 mode active

Page 629 of the owners manual.

support.dell.com/.../cli.pdf

If the ports you are wanting to put together in a LAG reside on different switches in the M1000e chassis, you would need to stack those switches first, and then create the LAG. Here is a great article that goes over that process.

www.google.com/url

Hope this information helps.

Keep us updated.

Will i loose failover if i configure one port to communicate vlan 2 only? It has to be port 4 on a2 i guess, and normal traffic will go through the 3 ports on 1, is this possible. Since i can see both connections in wmvare. 

If left side fails wouldnt all traffic go through port 4 right side (vlan2)

Thats what i thought. Since we got a blade rack on a other location it will use vmotion and move  the vms to the other m1000e rack.

So the only minus is that if A1 fails the users will be disconnected. But we cant get everything in the world, atleast we can use vmotion to move the virtual machines to a other blade rack with connection to Vlan 1

A1 and A2 is connected to a Cisco switch(4748) with lag support. We have configured lag on 4 ports on the cisco switch.

and its communicating on fibre from there.

So we want to use port 17 18 19 on a1 and connect to three of those ports. But do i have to configure the internal ports in lag to? or just the external ports?

I hope this gives you the information you need. I appreciate your help.

You can certainly setup external port 4 on switch A2 for VMotion. Depending on what device is being used on port 4 will determine how to configure it, Server, Storage, switch, something else?

The redundancy in the switches means that each server has a NIC that plugs into each switch. So if Switch A1 goes down, the server still has a connection to switch A2. But if we setup the external ports on switch A1, to be the connection to the rest of the network. And on switch A2 we setup the external ports to be connected to other devices, and limited to specific VLANs only. Then if Switch A1 were to fail, the servers would try to use switch A2 but not be able to get anywhere because of how the external ports are configured. And just the other way, if Switch A2 were to fail, the servers would still look to using Switch A1, but because of how the external ports are configured, the servers would no longer have a path to the device plugging into external port 4 on switch A2.

If you can go into more details on how things are currently setup, how you want things to be setup, Devices on the network, etc. I would be happy to lend some ideas on ways to get that setup.

Thanks.

The internal ports can be placed in a LAG. Those internal ports places in a LAG should all go to the same server. Then on the server you would need to create a team between the NIC ports, this can change based on server model, OS, drivers installed.

A LAG being setup goes from port to another device. So in the case of internal ports the LAG would be connecting those specific ports to a server. In the case of external ports, the LAG will usually connect to another networking switch. The LAG does not directly connect internal ports to external ports. If there is a LAG on the external ports, that does not mean that any of the internal ports have to be in a LAG.

I guess we wouldnt need lag on the internal ports since the other nic will go to a2 port 20 anyway. and Nic1 will go on a1 port 17 18 19(thats in lag)

Since the Cisco(4748) got lag aswell, do i have to set channel group 1 on the powerconnect and 2 on the switch, or dosent it really matter?

Yes, you will need a LAG/ channel group, on which ever 6220 the Cisco plugs into. So if the Cisco has a 3 port LAG, all 3 of those cables plug into the external ports of PowerConnect M6220 Switch A1, Then on A1 you will need to have those ports in a LAG/ channel group. That LAG will also need to be set to Trunk mode and allow the VLANs you want to traverse that connection.

Yeah, but one thing, how can i get the internal port to blade 2 on A2 to point at external port 4(20) only

Through the use of VLANs. You would place external port into a VLAN, say VLAN 2. Then you would place the internal port into VLAN 2. Devices on those two ports will be able to communicate with each other because they are in the same VLAN.

If the external port is plugging into another switch, you would use Trunk mode. By default all VLANs are added to the Trunk, So you can go as far as to remove all other VLANs from the Trunk, so that only VLAN 2 will traverse that Trunk.

Example:

console(config)# interface ethernet 1/e5

console(config-if)# switchport mode trunk

console(config-if)# switchport trunk allowed vlan remove 1, 3-4093

console(config-if)# switchport trunk allowed vlan add 2

console(config-if)# end

You can read up on this command more on page 836 of the owners manual.

support.dell.com/.../cli.pdf

With the internal connection I would follow these guidelines.

• With access to a single VLAN, making it what's called an access port in the world of physical switches, or in ESX Server terminology, using virtual switch tagging.

• With access to multiple VLANs, leaving tags intact, making it what's called a trunk port in the world of physical switches, or in ESX Server terminology, using virtual guest tagging.

www.vmware.com/.../virtual_networking_concepts.pdf

Thanks