Trunking between two SAN-Switches?

Hi,

We're currently running a couple of SAN-Switches in a HP C-Class Blade
interconnected to our central switches (Brocade) with redundant links.
Though the central SAN-Switch does have a trunking license the
Blade-Switches don't have one (yet).

My questions:

o) Is a trunking license really required in order to get load
distribution across multiple links?

o) I a trunking license required in order to get failover in case one of
the two parallel links between the switches fails?

o) What's the actual difference in terms of behavior (traffic
distribution and in case of a link-failure) with and without trunk
license on both switches?

o) Can only neighboring ports (e.g. 8+9) be placed on a trunk or
arbitrary ones (like e.g 1 and 12)?

Thanks much in advance for your help,
-ewald

On Mar 8, 11:08 am, Ewald Jenisch wrote:
Hi,

We're currently running a couple ofSAN-Switches in a HP C-Class Blade
interconnected to our central switches (Brocade) with redundant links.
Though the centralSAN-Switch does have a trunking license the
Blade-Switches don't have one (yet).

My questions:

o) Is a trunking license really required in order to get load
distribution across multiple links?

Yes it is


o) I a trunking license required in order to get failover in case one of
the two parallel links between the switches fails?

No, failover will wok without trunking


o) What's the actual difference in terms of behavior (traffic
distribution and in case of a link-failure) with and without trunk
license on both switches?


Without trunking then one SID/DID will bind itself to an ISL and stay
there. With trunking then the frames are evenly distributed across
all ISL's. You can also enable OXID based routing...

o) Can only neighboring ports (e.g. 8+9) be placed on a trunk or
arbitrary ones (like e.g 1 and 12)?

You must trunk within an octel (each 8 ports).



Thanks much in advance for your help,
-ewald

Regards

Jason

HP SAN Consultant