Teaming with Cisco 3120x

Hi there,
I hope somebody can help us. We recently bought some HP c7000 Blade Enclosures with 2 Cisco 3120x switches inside. On the blades we run Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and use teaming.
When a switch needs to be replaced after an hardware failure the new switch will be unconfigured placed back into the c7000 enclosure. The ports of the 3120x are not shut so the Windows servers will start transmit traffic through that ports. The problem is that the switches are not yet properly configured.
How can we solve this problem? Or do we need a test enclosure where we can shut the ports before putting back in the porduction enclosure?
How do you handle hardware failure's?
Thanks for the help!

Hi,
I've a doubt and a suggestion, but I'm not an expert in DC, so bear with me.
First, teaming and etherchannel are different names for the same, ethernet inverse multiplexing,
standardized in 802.3ad (LACP)
What I see as a problem with defining it in only one side is that your MACs will be moving
from one switch to the other, but nothing serious. You will not have link balancing or HA controlled from the switch side,
but as a response to whatever the host sends. So what is the problem with your design that prevents stacking and
multi chassis ethernet bonding is something I'd like to know.
Now, with your reinsertion trouble, I guess admin down all the ports on the host side before reinsertion
is one option.
As a more risky option, you can actually insert the switch and prevent it from booting by breaking into rommon.
The switch supports xmodem, so you can upload the configuration while the switch is non functional.
Good luck.

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    – Because equal-cost multipath (ECMP) can be used the data plane, the network can use all the links available between any two devices. The first-generation hardware supporting Cisco FabricPath can perform 16-way ECMP, which, when combined with 16-port 10-Gbps port channels, represents a potential bandwidth of 2.56 terabits per second (Tbps) between switches.
    – Frames are forwarded along the shortest path to their destination, reducing the latency of the exchanges between end stations compared to a spanning tree-based solution.
        – MAC addresses are learned selectively at the edge, allowing to scale the network beyond the limits of the MAC addr

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