VSS HSRP Comparison

[psaravanan]

Hi friends,

I have one small doubt in the campus/Datacenter designing.

Which feature is best for redundancy either Virtual Switching system (VSS) or HSRP.

Please give brief explain of the both feature comparison in deep.

Thanks & Regards,

Saravanan.

[Jon Marshall]

psaravanan wrote:
Hi friends,
I have one small doubt in the campus/Datacenter designing.
Which feature is best for redundancy either Virtual Switching system (VSS) or HSRP.
Please give brief explain of the both feature comparison in deep.
Thanks & Regards,
Saravanan.

Saravanan

The 2 things do not really compare. VSS also runs HSRP with the difference being that both HSRP addresses are active in forwarding traffic. But VSS is so much more than that and offers a lot more.

So it's not a choice between HSRP or VSS.

Perhaps if you could clarify exactly what you mean ?

Jon

[Yogesh Ramdoss]

Saravanan,

I am not sure if we can compare VSS and HSRP, as Jon mentioned.

As you migh know HSRP is just provide first-hop redundancy and it is not related to overall throughput of the network.

Converting the core switches to VSS (and having MEC configured in dist/access switches) helps you to improve overall performance as both fabric will be active in VSS and traffic load-balanced. No more STP blocking port in the dist/access switches, while getting chassis-level redundancy.

- Yogesh

[sarap]

Hi,

So VSS has more bandwidth and throughput compare to HSRP Operation. Is it right.

It may reduce the down time of the network or not.

[Jon Marshall]

sarap wrote:
Hi,
So VSS has more bandwidth and throughput compare to HSRP Operation. Is it right.
It may reduce the down time of the network or not.

Saravan

VSS may well reduce the downtime of the network.

However your statement about VSS and HSRP in terms of bandwidth makes no sense at all. VSS is a way to make one logical switch from 2 physical switches. It has many advantages such as removing STP from being an active participant in the L2 network and obviously incerasing overall throughput.

HSRP is simply a way to provide a redundant gateway to end hosts.

Perhaps you should read up a bit on VSS and HSRP to get a better understanding of what both of them do. The Cisco site has many good docs on both, just use the search function.

Jon

[Yogesh Ramdoss]

Hello,

As it has been mentioned earlier, we should not compare HSRP and VSS. I am not sure I can make a statement comparing their bandwidth.

- Yogesh

[Christopher Russell · Accepted solution]

sarap wrote:
Hi,
So VSS has more bandwidth and throughput compare to HSRP Operation. Is it right.
It may reduce the down time of the network or not.

Hey,

If you reword the above sentance to "VSS has more bandwidth and throughput compared with two standalone 6500's with regards to HSRP operation" then that is technically true.  As you have both physical chassis converged into a single logical one (with only one control plane), which means both chassis are forwarding for the same VLAN at the same time.  Where as with two standalone 6500's one would be active while the other is standby.

Of course with two standalone switches you could still load balance your VLANs so one device is active for the first half of the VLANs, while the second device is active for the second half of the VLANs.

Regarding potential down time, I am afraid that question is to vague to provide an accurate response, generally speaking if you use a two chassis VSS (with two or four sups between them) to replace a single chassis you will have higher availability, however if you use a VSS to converge two separate chassis into a single logical one then you will not really gain any extra resiliance, although this has nothing to do with HSRP.

Chris

[psaravanan]

Hi friends,

Thanks for your valuable suggestions,

I have another one doubt.

For example, I have 1000 users with two number of 6500 series.

In this scenario which redundancy is better.

Either VSS, HSRP or GLBP.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Saravanan

[ohassairi]

i recommand VSS

configuration will be more easy

for example if you are using static routing in C6500:

- with HSRP you need to add static route in both switches

- with VSS you only add the static route one time because you consider you have only one switch.

same thing for access lists !!

[Yogesh Ramdoss]

VSS is the way to go !

- Yogesh

[psaravanan]

Hi friends,

Thanks for your valuable suggestions.

Regards,

Saravanan