Specifications
Distribution Layer April 2014
48
Option 1: Congure Cisco Catalyst 6500-E Virtual Switching System and 6880-X
Virtual Switching System
Cisco Catalyst 6500-E Virtual Switching System merges two physical 6500 switches together as a single logical
switch, using a single or optionally dual Cisco Supervisor Engine 2T modules in each physical switch. Cisco
Catalyst 6880-X Virtual Switching System clusters two physical 6880-X switches together as a single logical
switch. A Supervisor module in the 6500-E or built-in Supervisor hardware in the 6880-X acts as the active
control plane for both chassis by controlling protocols such as Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol
(EIGRP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) Spanning Tree, CDP, and so forth, while supervisor hardware in each
chassis actively switches packets.
Although the validation of the current release of the design includes the Cisco Catalyst 6807-XL platform in the
core, the Catalyst 6500-E and 6880-X platforms are highlighted here, with the validation testing for the 6807-XL
in the distribution to be completed in the next release. More information about the 6807-XL configuration and
deployment is available in the Core Layer Platforms section.
The following configuration example shows you how to convert two standalone Cisco Catalyst 6500-E or 6880-X
switches to a Virtual Switching System (VSS). If you are migrating your switches from an existing in-service dual
chassis role to a VSS system, go to www.cisco.com and search on “Migrate Standalone Cisco Catalyst 6500
Switch to Cisco Catalyst 6500 Virtual Switching System” for information that describes how to do this migration.
For an in-depth VSS configuration guide and configuration options, go to www.cisco.com/go/cvd/campus and,
on the Cisco Validated Designs tab, look for the Campus 3.0 Virtual Switching System Design Guide.
When you set up the Cisco Catalyst 6500-E or 6880-X Virtual Switching System, connect two 10-Gigabit or
40-Gigabit Ethernet links between the chassis to provide the Virtual Switch Link (VSL). Always use at least two
links.
You can use up to eight links as members of the VSL, and the links should be distributed across Supervisor
Engines or line cards for resiliency. This design uses the two 10-Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on each Supervisor
Engine for the Cisco Catalyst 6500-E, and two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports on the Catalyst 6880-X. You connect
the VSL interfaces together before you configure the VSS.
To aid in understanding the connections between switches supporting the VSS configuration, the following tables
can be used. The optional Fast-Hello connection is used in this design, but can be replaced or augmented by
functionality available when implementing Ehanced PAgP, which is not covered in this release. The PortChannel
interface numbers are arbitrary and should be adapted to best suit your deployment. The chosen values reflect
the highest values supported across all VSS platforms validated in this release.
Table 3 - Example VSS connections for Cisco Catalyst 6509-E chassis pair with two Cisco Supervisor Engine 2T
VSS connection
VSS Switch 1
Port (PortChannel)
VSS Switch 2 Port
(PortChannel)
10-Gbps, VSL 1 Ten5/4 (Po63) Ten5/4 (Po64)
10-Gbps, VSL 2 Ten5/5 (Po63) Ten5/5 (Po64)
1-Gbps, Fast-Hello Gig9/24 Gig9/24