etherchannel on 2 separate switches

[tdubb123]

I have 3 vm nic ports going to 2 separate physical switches. Can i create a etherchannel across 2 switches?

[weinstein5]

Only if the switches are stacked -

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[thakala]

You could use virtual port-channel (vPC) if your switches are Cisco Nexus 5000 and you have Nexus 1000v on ESX. Otherwise you need stacked switches like weinstein5 wrote.

http://v-reality.info

[rickardnobel]

>Can i create a etherchannel across 2 switches?

The problem is that there is no standard for doing link aggregation between two switches. However, many vendors have their own solution for this. Some of these vendors calls this "stacked switches", but it could various names. It is also not sure that stacked switches in fact support Multi-switch Link Aggregation.

So you must know which switch vendor you have and what they call their own technology (if existing) and then check your specific switch type if the support is there.

[tdubb123]

my network guy is saying that you can do it with channel ports across 2 physical switches. is this true?

[depping]

Yes technically your network guy can do it... however, I think he won't be happy with the mac flapping that will be caused by this as all links will be active and you won't know on which link the traffic will flow.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCDX

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[Gerrit_Lehr]

I think if your switches support SMTL, it should be possible to split an aggegated link across different switches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_multi-link_trunking)

Kind regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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[depping]

if it is a stackable switch yes you can indeed. So something like a Cisco 3750 in a stacked config would work. If not, it would be 2 different etherchannels, and you shouldn't be touching it or come even close.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator | VCDX

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[tdubb123]

this is not a stackable. they are both active going to the core. cisco 6513. I have 2 vm nics going to switch A and 1 going to switch B. There is no etherchannel or teaming configured on the switch end. on the ESX side, it is set to using "route based on originating virtual port". I believe leaving it as such is only load balanced with outgoing traffic and not incoming right?

Are you saying it is not possible to create "one" etherchannel one 2 separate non stacked switches?

[endir]

I was looking into the same thing as you, tdubb123. Try checking this link out, and i think i have your answer.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/279965?tstart=30

Basically. With etherchannel on two switches connected to one group to one switch, and another group to 'failover' to the other switch... what happens when only one link in the etherchannel fails? you have flapping as data is going across two sets now, as only one link fails over, and not the entire portgroup.

Why vmware didnt bother toinclude a failover uplink group option is beyond me.

cheers.