Baystack 470 Multilink Trunk to Cisco

[tnphoneman]

Here is what I have tried to do on several occasions and no one has been able to figure this one out that I can find. I have 2 Baystack 470's in a stack configuration and I have 2 fiber GBIC links to the customer's Cisco equipment. I have the 2 Baystack ports set up as a multi link trunk but data will not flow to or from the Cisco. If I unplug one of the fibers it works fine. I need to know what to tell the Cisco programmer to set up his/her end as.

I have always had to revert back to using a spanning tree group and this works fine but we want to increase the throughput/bandwidth.

Any Suggestions? I really need the Cisco terminology as it does not seem to be the same as Nortel(go figure).

 

[DaddyOfThree]

I know you can definitely do it with LACP(802.3ad) on both switches (I believe the ES470 will support LACP running v3.7.x software, I'm not sure what the requirements are for the Cisco side).

I also believe you can run a Nortel MultiLink Trunk to a Cisco Etherchannel link. You may need to disable Nortel's proprietary STP and use either RSTP or MSTP. I can't remember if there were any specific settings on the Cisco side right now.

Cheers!

 

[anthonyanderberg]

I've hooked several different Cisco devices running Etherchannel to Nortel 425/5500/8600 devices running MLT without problems. Not all Cisco interfaces support being bonded into a team, for example some of the built-in router ethernet ports don't support it. As mentioned you may need to look at STG settings... here are enough IOS commands to get you started:

interface Port-channel1

interface FastEthernet1/0
channel-group 1 mode on

interface FastEthernet1/1
channel-group 1 mode on

If you need something other than the default VLAN 1 you'd add something like this to the interfaces above:
switchport access vlan 2

Best wishes,
anthony

 

[tnphoneman]

Thanks Anthony this is exactly what I needed.