[c-nsp] Best practice for redundancy

[Ed Butler]

I am wondering on what is considered best practice for redundancy.

We have two 6500-Sup720s in physically different sites, and we have two
diverse pairs of fibre between them. We are linking them together with
OSPF and BGP.

My question is what is considered best practice for that set up? We can
have a single 20G port channel, one run a single OSPF and BGP link, or
else leave the links unbundled and have 2 OSPF and 2 BGP links.
Immediate disadvantage to this is tieing up more CPU cycles, but it does
mitigate the effects of something affecting the port channel globally.

Something I am wary of is when we lose a link from a port channel it
causes the OSPF on VLANs to flap. I haven't tested the same for BGP
though. Desirable behviour in our situation would be to take one link
out of service at almost zero penalty, for maintenance etc.

Look forward to hearing what your thoughts are.

Regards,

Ed Butler
RapidSwitch Ltd
020 7106 0730

RapidSwitch Ltd, 5th Floor, Sovereign House, 227 Marsh Wall, London, E14
9SD