Need help - 6509 + 6513

dclee · ‎01-07-2010

Our current network uses 1 6509 SUP2's etc.

Unfort we are running out of space so we bought a new 6513 with Sup720's.

Phase 1 - I need to get the 6513 up and running on our network to support a storage over IP initiative.

Phase 2 - I need to migrate (slowly) all servers off the 6509 and over to the 6513.

Looking for ideas on what the best way would be to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Dave

sachinraja · ‎01-07-2010

Hi Dave

Are you going to swap the entire switch ? ie replace 6509 with 6513 as a whole ? Have you ordered ethernet modules for your 6513 ? what is the existing setup with 6509s ? Just one core switch connecting to edge, and servers ? How many VLANs are present on your network ? Are you looking for redundancy using 6509 + 6513 together ?

Its critical to know these things before commenting on the solution. Any core switch swap involves a lot of recabling, and physical layer changes.. network configs are manageable though (based on the complexitiy of your network)..

Raj

dclee · ‎01-07-2010

Hey Raj, thanks for the reply. The gameplan is to eventually get rid of the 6509, it will take awhile to physically

move servers to the new blades but thats fine.

The 6513 is populated with the exact setup as the 6509 in terms of ethernet and fiber cards. All of the ethernet

cards are 6548's 10/100/1000's

Trouble is that I need to have the 6513 up and running quickly for a new storage over IP project that is coming up so

I will need to run them both in tandem for awhile with all of the existing servers on the old 6509 and the new SOIP

servers on the 6513.

My thought was to create a trunk between the 2 switches, create a new vlan off the 6513 for the storage network

and then slowly move existing servers over to the existing vlan on the 6513.

If I do this, could I make a big enough trunk between the 2 catalysts via port channeling to make this happen ?

Cheers

Dave

sachinraja · ‎01-07-2010

Dave

Thanks for giving us the exact requirements...

You would follow what Jon mentioned in his post... basically to place the switches in parallel, and run HSRP .. your project plan can be as follows:

1) Power on self-test the new switch and make sure all modules are working

2) Rack and connect the switch , probably close to the old 6509.. thsi would make life easier when moving cables...

2a) discover the existing network, and document the port usage to plan which ports to be used in 6513...

3) Connect the 6513 to 6509 on 2 or more gig ports to make sure it has trunk capacity in future.. as you said, you can configure etherchannel to bundle the trunks

4) if the existing 6509 is in VTP server, place the 6513 as vtp server too. if they are in transparent, that would be best.. leave them to vtp transparent

5) configure a new dedicated vlan for storage... to start with you can just configure it on 6513 and span it to 6509 if required.. since the storage components are physically going to connect only to 6513, you can restrict the broadcast domain only with this switch and not span them.

6) On phase 2 you define HSRP pairs and connect the edge switches both to 6513 and 6509.. you can turn on 6513 as the stp root someday, to make sure traffic flows to this switch , and verify connectivity

7) How are the wan routers and others configured.. layer 3 connectivity can just be migraetd to the new switch taking a downtime.. configure routing accordingly

8) Once the layer 2 & 3 infrastructure is ready, it is time to make a phased approach to migrate the servers ...it would just be involving physical cabling changes, and just some small vlan configs on the new switch

9) test connectivity, and on phase 3 remove the 6509...

All the best for your migration... Hope this helps..

Raj

Jon Marshall · ‎01-07-2010

Dave

The only thing i would to Raj's great details is to make sure when you etherchannel to spread the load across the WS-X6548-GE-TX modules as there are etherchannel limitations when it is on the same module. You can also use the fibre ports on the actual supervisors to be part of the etherchannel. It is perfectly acceptable to mix fibre and copper in the same etherchannel as long as they are running the same speed/duplex etc.

Jon

Jon Marshall · ‎01-07-2010

dclee@cmpa.org

Our current network uses 1 6509 SUP2's etc.

Unfort we are running out of space so we bought a new 6513 with Sup720's.

Phase 1 - I need to get the 6513 up and running on our network to support a storage over IP initiative.

Phase 2 - I need to migrate (slowly) all servers off the 6509 and over to the 6513.

Looking for ideas on what the best way would be to do this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Dave

Phase 1 - are you fairly comfortable with 6500 config. If you are running IOS on your current 6509 then there is nothing fundamentally different about a sup720 in terms of config

Phase 2 - i would look to connect the 6513 to the 6509 and run HSRP between the 2 switches for the server vlans. That way all you have to do to migrate a server is physically patch it into the new switch if it is connected presently to the 6509.

You could actually keep the 6509 and run it together with the 6513 and dual hone your servers but a lot depends on the modules in use and throughput needed.

Jon