Nexus 5548 connection to 6509

[awatson20]

..I am connecting a Nexus 5K to a 6509 without VSS. Is the recommended configuration just straight etherchannel? Since the 6509 cannot do vpc, is an etherchannel the best way to configure this uplink? How does spanning-tree operate in this scenario?

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[Reza Sharifi]

To take an advantage of VSS, you need to connect the Nexus to both 6500 (VSS) switches using an Etherchannel. This way you don't have to worry about spanning-tree.  It is as you are connecting one switch to another.

HTH

[awatson20]

We do not have VSS on our 6509's

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[yantisj]

I ran this scenario for a while, and there's is no way to avoid spanning-tree and achieve redundancy.  We setup a vPC link from the nexus pair to each 6500, and the Nexus pair blocked towards the standby 6500.

One note of caution, make sure not to mismatch your port-channel types (LACP vs forced) in this typology. It will open up a spanning-tree loop when the LACP port fails to negotiate, does not send BPDUs, but accepts all packets recieved.

Good luck.