Meraki Ms425 & HP 5700 connectivity via DAC

[MattHobbins]

Hi Everyone,

We are in the process of upgrading our SAN and have the HP Nimble system on its way.  We have already received the switches (HP 5700 as specified by winning bid) and are in the process of setting them up but have hit a road block.

The plan was to connect them to the Meraki's via DAC cables but we cant seem to get them working, the cable shows up on both switches but we cant get any traffic to pass over the cables. 

We have tried the following hardware arrangements:

Meraki Cable - Meraki to HP sees cable but no traffic

Meraki Cable - Meraki to Meraki sees cable and passes traffic

HP Cable - Meraki to HP sees cable but n traffic

HP Cable - HP to HP sees and passes traffic

3rd party cable - Meraki to HP sees cable but no traffic

The 3rd party cable was coded with a Meraki connector on one end and an HP connector on the other.

The ports are enabled and have tried various options relating to trunks & Access but still cant get any traffic across these links.

Is there something somewhere we have missed?

Thanks

Matt

[BrechtSchamp]

Usually this kind of issue will not be supported by HP nor Cisco.

For that reason to interconnect two different vendors we usually use actual SFPs and patch cables. Even when connecting two Cisco switches, we still check the compatibility matrix to check compatibility on both ends.

Have you tried reaching out to the DAC-cable vendor?

[MattHobbins]

Thanks for your response BrechtSchamp.

I know neither manufacturer will officially support this due to using another manufacturers cable on their switch but was hoping somebody in the community may have encountered this scenario or know of a setting to allow this to work.

I know it is possible to use SFP's but was hoping not to need to make that the solution due to the number of ports that would end up being used based on 1 DAC cable = 4 SFP's.

We have been working with the 3rd party cable vendor to get the correct coding on the cable and as mentioned, the cable is seen by both switches, we just cant get any traffic over the link which, to me, would suggest a config issue somewhere.

Thanks

[PhilipDAth]

Are the DAC cables 3m or less and passive copper?

[MattHobbins]

Hi PhilipDAth,

We have both 3m and 5m cables both in passive variety neither option works.

Thanks

[PhilipDAth]

For the testing,  is the network loop free between the HP and Meraki? 

Are options enabled like UDLD? 

Can you at least see the LLDP neighbour info? 

[MattHobbins]

The only other link to the HP switch is for the management interface which shouldn't cause any issues but will try checking tomorrow.

UDLD is set to "Alert only" and the LLDP doesn't see the HP switch, it just reports the DAC properties ie make model & serial.

I will get the HP settings checked tomorrow and hope it can fix the issue.

Thanks

[PhilipDAth]

Is the Meraki switches running 10.x firmware?

Any firmware updates fo rthe HP switches?

[MattHobbins]

Have checked this morning and the Meraki is on 10.40 (awaiting service window to update) and the HP is up-to-date.

I am just sending port configs (No sensitive info configured yet) for both switches to the 3rd party manufacturer so they can see if there are any coding discrepancies on their cables.

[PhilipDAth]

Does the HP cable work Meraki to Meraki?