I decided to stop fighting cross-vendor-VLAN-interoperability and traded out my Brocade switch for a Cisco model with POE. Now all the things plug into a single switch so I don’t have to worry about 802.1q implementations being consistent. Plus I’ve got loads more experience with Cisco than Brocade so I feel much more at home configuring/figuring it out.
I ended up going with a secondhand Cisco WS-C3750E-48PD-SF. Thanks Tams! In addition to simplifying my setup, it had the unintentional (and very welcome) side effect of making my rack a few degrees cooler and consequently much quieter.
I feel a little disappointed to not have slain the beast―but I have a solution, so not too disappointed.
I’ll do another post on my updated setup sometime soon-ish… maybe. Given my current release pace, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath.
Remember, if something hasn’t gone wrong yet, you’re not trying hard enough.
-Nate