Interconnecting MDS 9148 switches

[Guest]

How do I interconnect 2 MDS 9148 switches located on 2 different sites. They will be connected in Optera,also present on both sites. Is it really necessary to interconnect the switches? I am attaching the network diagram.

[Guest]

Do you need FC conectivity between the sites for anything?  If not, then no you don need to interconnect them. Steven

[Guest]

Im trying to figure out on what kind of configuration Ill apply upon connecting the MDS 9148 switches to OPTERA. According to the handler of optera, they will need one port from the switch which will serve as its "main output" because optera uses DWDM technology (multiplexing). Should I configure the port as port-channel or trunk? Im attaching an updated diagram. Thanks for your help.

[Guest]

I assume you have already decided that you require FC connectivity between the sites. How many VSANs are you looking to run across the DWDM?  Are these VSANs in place already on the 9148s, and are they using the same VSAN number?  IE:  a host in vsan 100 on the left side, will not be able to communicate with a storage array in vsan 200 on the right side of your diagram. My suggestion is to make the link between the 2 9148 a trunk (which means it can transport more than 1 VSAN).  If you would like to build in some redundancy, and expand the bandwidth, you could create a port-channel.  (logicall combinine more than 1 link to look and act like 1 link).  The caveat here is that all links must be between the same 2 9148s. Looks like you have an A and a B fabric, so you could build a port channel between the 2 A fabric 9148s, and another between the 2 B fabric 9148s.  This would consume 4 ports on the Optera on each end. A port-channel can also act as a trunk (transport multiple vsans), so the best option would be to configure the links as a trunking port-channel.  This would provide you the most flexible option.  If the need arrises for more bandwidth between the sites, you can add additional links to the port-channel provided there are available ports on the Optera. Hopefully the Optera units are providing local BB credit spoofing and you do not need to look into extending the BB credits on the ports that will be used for the DWDM connections.  if you find that the Optera is not providing BB credit spoofing (they may have another name for this), let us know and we can explan how to increase the BB credits on the ISL ports. We would need to know some details like link speed, fiber distance, and average frame size to make a valid calculation on the BB credits. HTH, Mike

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. I still have a few questions though. We
e going to connect the MDS 9148 switches to Optera via 4G fc link, but the present card in optera doesnt support 4G, it supports 2G instead. So instead, Ill be configuring 2 x 2G ports per MDS9148 as trunking port channel going to Optera. Is this approach correct? Also they want to implement an active-standby mode on these links going to Optera, is this necessary? Because as I have read about the port channel protocol, it already does the load balancing via IOD (in order delivery).  In this design, do I still need to connect both mds 9148 switches located in one site?Any tips on how I should create the VSANs, do i still need to implement IVR?