Powerconnect 5548 failover with 2 switch

Question

Hi everyone, This is my first post here and I am not a network engineer. Simply a 1 man ban trying to learn the hard way. I have bought a server 1x Dell PowerEdge C6220 server, 2x Dell PowerConnect 5548 and 1x Dell PowerVault MD3200i storage for a really good price in view to set up a XenServer cluster of 4 nodes. I need help understanding how the PowerConnect failover work. As per the PC5548 manual, I have stacked the 2x switch via the HDMI connection and I can see both units on the web GUI. I am planning to create the following VLANs: VLAN1 - for all IPMI connection so it is only accessible via VPNVLAN2 - for iSCSI subnet A of the MD3200iVLAN3 - for iSCSI subnet B of the MD3200iVLAN4 - XenServer public facing/internet access So far I have connected all the cat5 cables to the first switch (master) but I don't understand how the failover work because I have no cables connected from switch 2 to any servers or the first switch. If switch 1 fails, how can the second server take over the ports that are connected? Do I need to phisyclyunplug all the cat5 from 1 switch and plug them back to the secon switch? I know this might seem stupid question you many of you but please bare with me as I am very much in learning mode. Also, does the VLAN3 need to be truck mode? The cable connects my XenServer node1 to the switch and inside the XenServer I will have a virtual switch for the internal VMs. For VLAN2&3 I understand that the switch will know it is iSCSI but what type of VLAN do I need to setup (access, general, trunk)? I welcome any advise. Thank you

DELL-Josh Cr · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Welcome to the forum. Stacking doesn’t provide failover by itself. It effectively is turning two or more switches into one big switch. The way to create failover with this is to create port channels with one port on each switch and have two ports connected to your devices. The xenserver vswitch should use tagged traffic, so trunk mode can be used, but if it is only passing a single vlan access mode should work. For the iscsi traffic probably access mode.

fred974 · Answer

Thank you very much for clarifying.

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