Craig Lalley wrote:
> I have heard this recommendation several times, but I have never heard a reason why.
> I have installed cross over cables in specific situations, usually when shadowing with netbase to an HP3000 or SQL data warehouse.
> I have yet have any issues, (issues defined as problems seen in LINKCONTROL @,a).
> Why is it that HP recommends putting a switch in the middle?

A store-and-forward switch gives you a little buffer, as well as
stabilize your interface to effects of your crossover-cabled neighbor. 
I'm not familiar with what sort of events would toggle the link on a
3000 -- obviously power cycling, probably rebooting, don't know about
resetting an interface -- but the 3000 does not react well to losing
it's link.  For a real network connection with any traffic, you'll get a
gateway down condition, which the 3000 does not recover from
automatically.  For your crossover case, you may have no reason to reach
the gateway and this may not be an issue.  I don't know how long the
3000 will tolerate the link down before generating a hard error.

In general, providing a switch in the middle prevents link issues on one
side from propagating to the other :-)

Jeff

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