New Infrastructure Project - 3 Different stacks!

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Oct 9 2012 9:39PM

Hello everyone! I'm sure I'll patrol these boards often as I get familiar with XOS.

My company is building 2 new buildings, and we're putting eXtreme devices within each one!
Each building will have a 450, and (4) 440's. They will be stacked, and there will be a LACP/LAG between the two buildings, and our main building. Our main building will have a 460 and a 450 stacked.

I will use EAPS to prevent looping.

Anyone have any suggestions on what else I might implement to better serve my end users. There are alot of protocols Im unaware of, Im sure, so what are your suggestions?

Ill be posting status updates here if you guys would like!

Thanks a bunch,

Jeremy
(from Jeremy_Homan)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Oct 10 2012 9:10PM

Hey Jeremy

So this is a tough question without a clear idea of things. For example if the other buildings are tagged with the VLANs all the way back to the core then the core stack is the only one that needs to route. With a static to the FW you can make it real easy. If each building is its own subnet and you are routing to the other buildings then there is no reason to use EAPS as EAPS is L2 and routing can be done using OSPF for L3 redundancy.

I would suggest contacting your local SE to have him/her help with the design.

Does that make sense?

P (from Paul_Russo)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Oct 10 2012 3:33PM

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback. I'll use EAPS for my redundant fiber loop.

Also, with the addition of our 2 new buildings, and our current infrastructure, we're thinking about implementing a routing protocol. Right now we have static routes pointing all over the place and it can be a pain to manage.

We have a multi-vendor enviorment, (Some day it will be all eXtreme!), what routing protocols do you guys use within your enviorment and why? I was thinking about OSPF?

In our main building, we have 3 floors. All 3 floors converge to our 1st Floor Stack. The firewall and our WLC also converge there. There is a link from the 1st floor stack heading downstairs to our DC Stack. This is where all of our servers reside, and from there we have a link to a "vendor" network which also resides within the Data Center.

From our DC stack, we will LAG another "eXtreme" stack that will act as the EAPS master for the new buildings. Then, the new buildings will connect via the "eXtreme Master Stack".

What do you guys think? In my last enviorment, I was running all Cisco hardware so CDP took care of all of this for me.

Do I need a routing protocol? How do I get traffic from a switch in one of my new buildings on VLAN Y to communicate with a host on the 3rd floor in my main building on VLAN G.

Thanks!!@

(from Jeremy_Homan)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Oct 10 2012 2:16PM

Hey Jeremy

I do agree that either EAPS or ERPS (both do the same thing ERPS is the standard) are great backbone redundancy technologies. For other protocols I would look to ELRP at the edge to stop edge (user) port loops you can also disable auto-polarity so that a straight-through cable doesn't form a connection and start a loop.

MLAG is an excellent decision for connecting servers in the DC to two core switches. An example would be if instead of stacking the 460 and 450 if each was a stand alone switch, each part of the EAPS/ERPS ring and then MLAG to servers or if you grow into another stack in the core to do the same thing.

Nice things to do include enabling CPU DoS protect on the switches and also DHCP snooping with trusted servers so that a user can't statically assign their IP to be the Gateway and do a man in the middle or DHCP server attack. This should be done on any port/switch with end users on it. Finally if you have downloaded the free version of Ridgeline 3.1 fro the website I would also look to enable IDM for user monitoring on the network.

Hope this helps
P (from Paul_Russo)

[EtherNation_Use]

Create Date: Oct 10 2012 11:37AM

Hi Jeremy,

If your fiber is laid out in a loop already then EAPS is the best thing to go with. If you want more complicated L2 topologies like stars then you're off better with RSTP. I don't know if MLAG would be a good fit for your setup. The nice thing about MLAG is it doesn't have any blocked links.

Thanks,
Andrew (from Andrew_McConachie)