Data center switch port requirements

Although you can configure an uplink set to receive incoming network traffic as untagged by designating a network in that uplink set as Native, traffic egressing the uplink set is always VLAN tagged (except for untagged uplink sets).

The switch ports for data center network switches that connect to the Virtual Connect interconnects must be configured as follows:

  • Spanning tree edge (because the Virtual Connect interconnects appear to the switch as access devices instead of switches).

  • VLAN trunk ports (tagging) to support the VLAN IDs included in the uplink set that connects to the switch port.

    For example, if you configure an uplink set, prodUS , that includes the production networks prod 1101 through prod 1104 to use the Q ports of the interconnects in bay 1 and bay 2 of Enclosure 1, then the data center switch ports that connect to those Q ports must be configured to support VLAN IDs 1101, 1102, 1103, and 1104.

  • If multiple uplinks in an uplink set connect the same logical interconnect to the same data center switch, you must configure the data center switch ports for LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) in the same LAG (Link Aggregation Group) to ensure that all the uplinks in the uplink set are active.

    Set the frequency of control messages : short — every 1 second with a 3–second timeout; or long — every 30 seconds with a 90–second timeout.

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