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BMD00082, February 2009 13
CHAPTER 1
VSE SmartConnect Software
Operation
VSE SmartConnect Software Overview
The Virtual Switch Extension (VSE) for IBM BladeCenter, SmartConnect, provides a simple
Ethernet interface option for connecting a blade server chassis to the network infrastructure. The
administrative effort and network skills required to connect to the network are minimized. The
number and type of configuration options on the VSE SmartConnect software are restricted to
reduce the initial setup complexity and to minimize the impact on upstream networking devices.
The VSE SmartConnect software requires basic administration tasks similar to those required to
connect a single multi-linked server to the network. Connecting the blade server chassis with up
to fourteen (14) server blades becomes as easy as connecting a single server to the network.
The default network configuration of the VSE SmartConnect software consists of a single Vir-
tual Switch Group (VSG). As the switch is configured, additional VSGs may be created, and
switch resources (internal ports, external ports, and virtual machines) may be reassigned to
take advantage of various switch virtualization features.
By default, all of the external uplink ports in each VSG are aggregated together into a static
Link Aggregation Group (LAG, or trunk), which is fully compatible with Cisco EtherChannel
technology. This configuration eliminates the need for Spanning Tree Protocol to prevent net-
work loops among the individual links, since the uplink ports act as a single link.
The VSE SmartConnect software provides improved network reliability. By default, uplink
ports participate in a static trunk so that if an individual link fails, the existing traffic is redi-
rected to the remaining links. In addition to default static trunks, VSGs may be configured to
use dynamic Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for their trunks.