Brocade FastIron Ethernet Switch Platform and Layer 2 Switching Configuration Guide User Manual
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FIGURE 11 VSRP mesh - redundant paths for Layer 2 and Layer 3 traffic
In this example, two Brocade devices are configured as redundant paths for VRID 1. On each of the
devices, a Virtual Router ID (VRID) is configured on a port-based VLAN. Since VSRP is primarily a
Layer 2 redundancy protocol, the VRID applies to the entire VLAN. However, you can selectively
remove individual ports from the VRID if needed.
Following Master election (described below), one of the Brocade devices becomes the Master for the
VRID and sets the state of all the VLAN ports to Forwarding. The other device is a Backup and sets all
the ports in its VRID VLAN to Blocking.
If a failover occurs, the Backup becomes the new Master and changes all its VRID ports to the
Forwarding state.
NOTE
The link between VSRP Master and VSRP Backup is "optional" in
aware device is a Brocade FastIron family device, such as ICX 6610, FCX/SX/ ICX 6430/6450 and
ICX 6650, this link is required and recommended. This is due to the need for interoperability between
devices of these two platforms having different default timers. The link between the VSRP Master and
Backup guarantees that the VSRP Hello message is flowing between the VSRP Master and the VSRP
Standby directly to cause VSRP transition instead of relying on VSRP-Aware devices to forward and
risk missing the VSRP Hello message.
Other Brocade devices can use the redundant paths provided by the VSRP devices. In this example,
three Brocade devices use the redundant paths. A Brocade device that is not itself configured for
VSRP but is connected to a Brocade device that is configured for VSRP, is VSRP aware . In this
example, the three Brocade devices connected to the VSRP devices are VSRP aware. A Brocade
device that is VSRP aware can failover its link to the new Master in sub-second time, by changing the
MAC address associated with the redundant path.
Metro Features
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FastIron Ethernet Switch Platform and Layer 2 Switching Configuration Guide
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