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Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Hello,
I have two GS752TXS switches in my server rack. I use the SFP+ ports to connect them with each other and with my servers. I now want to split my servers in two locations with each location having two switches for redundancy.
I plan to buy 2 Netgear M4300-8x8f for this purpose. I want to connect the same kind of switch with each other over a short distance and the resulting groups with fibre. Ideally I would like to use two fibre cables at the same time for redundancy like this:
Is this possible? Do I have to configure something to avoid collisions?
Or is there a better way to achieve best possible redundancy within a similar budget?
Ideally I should be able to turn off one switch without loss of connection. I have a storage on one location and would like to keep the VMs on the second location connected, even if one switch has a problem.
You could stack both GS752TXS together, stack both M4300 together and have a two cables LAG between the two stacks -> you get the redundandy, reduce the amount of configuration, don't need STP, increase the efficiency of load balancing on the switches
To build the stacks, you could use Direct Attached Cables such as AXC761 or AXC763, which are 10Gbps copper, therefore MUCH less expensive than fiber modules -> you get same performance for lower price
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Hi ptoschi,
Welcome to the community! 🙂
It is possible. You will need to configure STP on the switches.
Also, consider the compatible SFP modules to be used for both GS752TXS and M4300-8X8F switches. The compatible SFP modules for both GS752TXS and M4300-8X8F switches are the following:
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Hi,
GS752TXS and M4300-8X8F are stackable (not between each other, but among same model).
Why don't you stack both GS752TXS together and both M4300-8X8F together and build a two cable LAG between both stacks?
You could build the stacks with two 10Gbps Direct Attached Cable, such as AXC761 or AXC763 (much cheaper than SFP+ fiber modules), then have a LAG between both stacks, member 1 to member 1 + member 2 to member 2, using SFP+ fiber module. This way you save several modules and don't even need STP.
Then on both ends, you can connect your servers to the stack via LAGs spreading accross the members of the stack. So you have a one switch redundancy on each side.
You could stack both GS752TXS together, stack both M4300 together and have a two cables LAG between the two stacks -> you get the redundandy, reduce the amount of configuration, don't need STP, increase the efficiency of load balancing on the switches
To build the stacks, you could use Direct Attached Cables such as AXC761 or AXC763, which are 10Gbps copper, therefore MUCH less expensive than fiber modules -> you get same performance for lower price
You could stack both GS752TXS together, stack both M4300 together and have a two cables LAG between the two stacks -> you get the redundandy, reduce the amount of configuration, don't need STP, increase the efficiency of load balancing on the switches
To build the stacks, you could use Direct Attached Cables such as AXC761 or AXC763, which are 10Gbps copper, therefore MUCH less expensive than fiber modules -> you get same performance for lower price
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Hi,
thank you for the replies and great ideas. My GS752TXS are already stacked, so the LAG idea sounds good. Although I had some trouble in the past with the GS752TXS. I had 4 of them stacked together and every time one of those 4 lost power (even one at the end), the other three weren't reachable for almost a minute. Is this normal behavior? With real redundancy, all the other switches should keep working, as long as there is a connection between them...
I've never used STP before but it doesn't look too difficult at first glance.
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
I just saw that STP (not RSTP) is active on my GS752TXS. Could this be the reason for the connection loss when one of the switches goes down? As the central Storage and my VMs run over these switches at the moment and I use LAG and the servers have two concurrent connections (ESXi, without LAG, one to each switch), I have not dared to deactive it. Do I need STP if I have connected my physical machines with more than one cable without LAG?
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Thank You for the info. I've read in the meantime that for the ESXi vswitch I don't need STP so I will try to deactivate it in the night and see what happens.
Re: Redundant SFP+ connection between switches (GS752TXS and M4300-8x8f)
Hi,
sorry I didn't express myself clearly. ESXi viswitch has no setting for STP. I deactivated STP on the Netgears which connect to the ESXi - servers. This worked fine without problems. Of course I didn't try to disconnect one of the switches to see if the other keeps working - I'll try that during a maintenance time in one or two months...
