Cisco 7206/5814 - Dial shelf interconnect question

[rainman]

Hello

I have a question regarding the Cisco 5814/7206 NAS. The 5814 dial-shelf controller (DSC) is connected to the 7206 via a dial-shelf interface (DSI). This connection is ethernet-based even though Cisco calls it a proprietary DSI connection. When you do a "show dsi" to look at the status of the DSI interface it shows UP/UP and has various info that you'd expect an ethernet interface to have (plus the physical connector IS ethernet-based). This being the case, I am trying to determine if the DSI is a generic ethernet connection (running layer 2 between the 5814 and 7206 for dial shelf to dial shelf controller communication).

If this is the case and its just an ethernet conn running layer 2, is it possible to put a switch in between of the 5814 and 7206? (put it in it's own VLAN). Reason I ask is I have seen a moderate failure rate of 7206's acting as a dial shelf for a 5814, and it usually requires an onsite visit (trying to get away from that). If i can put a switch in between and use VLAN's I could create a layer of redundancy for 5814's (have the ability to map the port to another VLAN in the event of a 7206 dial shelf outage).

Any thoughts on this? The DSI interface does indeed seem to be layer 2 and MAC based was hoping someone else out there has tried this?


Thanks,

Rainman!

 

[rtfmdude]

rainman,

Interesting! I couldn't find the answer to your question, but it seems totally doable. I would suggest reposting this on cisco-nas (at) puck.nether.net - there are some real access server pros on that list.

 

[rainman]

I am going to try it in a lab in the next week I will post my findings.


-Rainman