Cisco <-> Nortel Passport Interoperability?

[porterrb]

We have 2 Nortel Passport 8600 as our redundant core. All edge switches (also Nortel) are connected using Split Multi-link Trunking (SMLT) with one Gigabit connection to each switch.

We would like to put dual Cisco switches in one area. We would like to link each Cisco switch with both Nortel switches. We are looking to have traffic go over both links simultaneously. What model of Cisco switch should we buy? Does Cisco support SMLT? If not, is there any way to configure these 2 pair of switches to work together redundantly?

[j.viola]

You could link most Cisco switches with the Nortel if you ran 802.1Q trunks or FE Port-Channels.

I believe SMLT is a Nortel proprietary function.

[porterrb]

The reason I brought SMLT up is because on the Passport 8600 FAQ it said that SMLT works with Cisco EtherChannel.

I don't know how to interpret this. Does this mean Cisco works with SMLT? Or does SMLT just pass through the Etherchannel?

I am hoping somebody has some experience with this or has tried it.

[bclarke-taylor]

I've seen a test were a Cisco 6500 was connected via GEC to two passport 8600's, the 8600's were using SMLT to provide layer 2 redundancy. In this configurtion all machines worked perfectly.

The cisco box believed that it was talking to one box only - that being the logical box that the two 8600's presented.

Benjamin

[porterrb]

That makes me feel a little better. I have not seen anyone come straight out and say they have done it. I have only seen whispers and specualtion on this in various forums.

I am caught in a Catch-22. I don't have a cisco switch to verify that we can make this work. But I don't want to buy a cisco switch until I know that it will work with the Nortels the way I want it to.