Gigabit Cisco switches with redundancy
This configuration was designed for a medical environment where availability must be maintained. The following configuration consists of a Cisco 3950 (middle) and a Cisco 3650 (bottom) which have been setup for redundancy. The Cisco 3950 has fiber to three additional IDFs. The servers used in this configuration are stratus 4300 servers, and each has 8 gigabit ports, for a total of 16 ports. One virtual team has been created from the four ports of each server and has been configured for adaptive load balancing. The servers have two blades each, and each blade is a mirror of the other. To maximize the configuration ports 1 and 4 from each server was connected to the Cisco 3950, and ports 2 and 3 were connected to the Cisco 3650. This means that one switch can fail, three NICs can fail, and the server can maintain connectivity granted the NIC that hasn't failed remains on the working switch.

The blue cables in this image were installed prior to my installation.