[nycbug-talk] cisco switch redundancy

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, N.J. Thomas wrote:

> I have a Cisco 6506 switch that I'd like to provide some redundancy for.
> 
> What I was thinking of doing was setting up a BSD/Linux box running
> VRRP, and if the 6506 died, fail over to the PC. Which will (hopefully)
> give us enough time to replace the 6506.
> 
> Has anyone done anything like this before? Is this even doable? Can BSD
> speak HSRP (Cisco's proprietary version of VRRP)?
No. But cisco can speak VRRP. 

> Being cheap may or may not be the best option here. I know I could get
> another 6506 and then use HSRP to get redundancy, but if there is a
> cheaper solution, I'd like to hear about it first.
You didn't provide enough information about your network to give an
intelligent response. For example - what sup do you have in cisco? what do
you have plugged into cisco - servers plugged directly or you have L2 
switches plugged into it or you have L3 switches, etc.

-alex