Combination Ports and Failover

ExtremeSwitching switches provide 2, 4, or 12 uplink ports implemented as combination ports that pair a copper port using RJ45 connectors with an optical port using LC connectors.

The copper port operates as an autonegotiating 10/100/1000BASE-T port. The optical port allows Gigabit Ethernet uplink connections through Extreme Networks small form factor pluggable (SFP) interface modules. See the individual switch descriptions for the port numbers of the combination ports on each switch model.

ExtremeSwitching switches support automatic failover from an active fiber port to a copper backup or from an active copper port to a fiber port. If one of the uplink connections fails, the Summit uplink connection automatically fails over to the second connection. To set up a redundant link on a combination port, connect the active 1000BASE-T and fiber links to both the RJ45 and SFP interfaces of that port.

Gigabit Ethernet uplink redundancy on the ExtremeSwitching switches follows these rules:

With both the SFP and 1000BASE-T interfaces connected on a combination port, only one interface can be activated. The other is inactive.
If only one interface is connected, the switch activates the connected interface.
The switch determines whether the port uses the fiber or copper connection based on the order in which the connectors are inserted into the switch. When the switch senses that an SFP and a copper connector are inserted, the switch enables the uplink redundancy feature. For example, if you first connect copper ports x and y on a switch, and then insert SFPs into ports x and y, the switch assigns the copper ports as active ports and the fiber ports as redundant ports.

Hardware identifies when a link is lost and responds by swapping the primary and redundant ports to maintain stability. After a failover occurs, the switch keeps the current port assignment until another failure occurs or a user changes the assignment using the CLI. For more information about configuring automatic failover on combination ports, see the ExtremeXOS 16.2 User Guide .