What is a stacked switch?

Hi,
Can anyone explain what is a stacked switch and what kind of switches can be stacked and why the switched need to be stacked and how they work.
Any links that I can go through to get the details.
Thanks in Advance,
Shyam

Hi
When you talk about stacking the cisco switches, there are two techniques
gigastack :- In this you connect all the switches uplink with gigabit stack GBIC.
guru prasad has given one cisco url for that.
and all the switches that support stackwise technology are now end of sale.
stackwise and stackwise plus :-
Cisco StackWise technology unites up to nine individual Cisco Catalyst 3750 switches into a single logical unit, using special stack interconnect cables and stacking software. The stack behaves as a single switching unit that is managed by a master switch elected from one of the member switches. The master switch automatically creates and updates all the switching and optional routing tables. A working stack can accept new members or delete old ones without service interruption.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps5023/products_white_paper09186a00801b096a.shtml
now we can say that we have only one stacking option available that is of stackwise as all model which supported gigstack are now end os sale.
HTH
rate if it helped
rgds
rajat

Similar Messages

L2 stack switch - to end-user devices

Hi all,
I came across a design in my project today and realize that there are 3 x L2 stack switches which will be connecting to end-user computers.
According to the client, for end-user devices, he intend to just connect 1device/interface.
Q1) I am wondering, in this design, the only intention is to increase the number of interfaces/ports , am i right ? as there is only 1 physical cable for each connected device.
==========================================================================================
In the same design, there is 2 x L3 switches which are meant for core network connecting to servers computers. They are stacked as well.
In this case, etherchannels are configured on the switches and servers which the 2 interfaces in 1 server are connecting to separate switches' interface in the stack.
Q2) Can I check, for this kind of switch stacking setup, are the etherchannels configure as active, active or it can be configure as active,passive ? or it is switches and servers dependable ?
Regards,
Noob

Hi Reza,
Thanks for the reply.
Q1) I am wondering, in this design, the only intention is to increase the number of interfaces/ports , am i right ? as there is only 1 physical cable for each connected device.
That is correct. The end devices (printers, PCs, laptops) usually have one physical cable and you can only connect them to one switch, but sometimes for mission critical environments engineers deploy multiple switches in case one of them goes out for any reason.
What if in the event that 1 of the switch go down, as the switches are stacked, can i just plug out the cable @ interface let's say at switch1 fe0/1 and insert it into switch2 fe0/1 ? (provided it is not occupied)
Q2) Can I check, for this kind of switch stacking setup, are the etherchannels configure as active, active or it can be configure as active,passive ? or it is switches and servers dependable ?
If you issue "sh etherca summay" on the stack, it will show you the port number that are part of that etherchannel. As for active or passive, usually the switch is configured as active and servers as passive but you can also configure both sides as active.
Do you mean on the server side, only 1 port will be receiving/sending information, but on the switch side, each interface at each of the 2 switches is able to receive/send ?
Regards,
Noob

Using 37xx stack switch can I send snmp messages as syslog ?

In my environment, we are having cisco 37xx stack switches, I want to know is it possible to use the switch config to send snmp traps as syslog messages to the Syslog-server.
In our case, we are using siem which has the ability to process syslog messages from different networking switches. What specific event I'm after is related to bandwidth utilization of the interface. It would have been great if there was existing syslog-event for exceeded bandwidth or increase in bandwidth beyond certain bps rate. The only place such information can be obtained is from snmp, but the siem station doesn't understand snmp, So I hope there are some setting which allows the conversion of snmp traps to syslog msg to be forwarded to destination.
Thanks.

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Where some users get into problems is if they go from an iPhone number to an Android phone number. That is not what you are doing.

LMS and stacking switches

Hi everyone!
I was having a conversation with a friend and he assured that the LMS is stacking switches with up to 09 switches.
Anyone know if this is true? For all I know this is only done through the special interface stack (as in 3750 and 2960S).

LMS (and Cisco Network Assistant) manages Cisco switch stacks. And, yes, a stack is up to 9 switches.
I'm not sure what you're asking, though. Stacks are built by virtue of physically connecting the StackWise cables and that is independent of what, if anything, is used for network management.

Few questions about 3750X stack switch

Dear,
I have just joined this helpful community. Since I am still a newbie, it is my hope to comprehend through our discussions. I would like to ask few questions about 3750X stack switch:
What kind of switches are considered as provisioned switch?
What is the purpose of using provision switch?
Which advantages does a provision switch provide? If we don't use provision feature, what would be happened?
Thank you very much. Look forward to reading your replies.

Disclaimer
The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.
Liability Disclaimer
In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.
Posting
Ivan's reference provides the details, but in real world where provisioned switches are nice include: if a switch member fails, that's switch member's configuration is still present and can be used on a like model replacement.
Also: for new stack members, being able to provision the new switch stack, before you add it to the stack, save a little time when you add the stack member to the stack. I.e. you can provision the stack member ahead of time, and then when you add the stack member, as soon as it joins the stack, it has the desired configuration.

Magic number mismatch: bad mzip file in 3750 stack switch

Hi All can anybody help me in this error msg
"magic number mismatch: bad mzip file"
I am trying to upgrade the switch with"c3750e-ipbasek9-tar.122-55.SE5.tar" in 3750 stack switch it is showing this error msg while booting
thanks in advance

Hi,
The reason you are getting this error message on the switch is a corrupt or wrong IOS image "c3750e-ipbasek9-tar.122-55.SE5.tar".
If the switch is in rommon mode, and you have any other image in the switch, boot it using that image. Once the switch is up, download and copy the correct IOS image once again on the switch and try to upgrade.
If you need help in finding the correct IOS image, give me the exact switch model number, i will help you with that.
But forsure the image is wrong or corrupt and that is why you are getting this error.
Thanks
Ankur
"Please rate the post if found useful"

What kind of HDMI switch is recommended? We have a Smsung TV and DVD player along with the Apple TV.

What kind of HDMI switch is recommended? We have a Saimsung TV and DVD player along with the Apple TV.. The switch we bought works for a few days and then starts cutting out. Thanks.

Does the TV not have multiple HDMI inputs?
There are no "recommended" switches.
Buy a quality device that gets good reviews.

What kind of KVM switch can I use to monitor sun rack with 490s, 245s, and

Hi,
What kind of KVM switch can I use to monitor sun rack with 490s, 245s, and T2000s ?
Ushas Symon

It sounds like the customer and server room operator are using a Microsoft/X86 mindset. There are several selling points on using RSCs & SCs. First off are the big 3 that are easy for any good server room operator to understand: cost, space & power. If you don't have to buy a 1U Tripp-lite pull out rack KVM console ($1700) and a video card for each of your SUN servers ($400, yes SUN vid cards are $$$), you start off by saving several thousand dollars.
Next you need to let them know that you require remote access to the systems from your desk and a standard KVM doesn't allow this (with Unix, if you have to get up from your desk then its a hardware problem). They can choose to purchase a network enabled KVM, but that adds $700 to your $1700 KVM. By using the SC you will be able to administer the system remotely.
Third, remember that SUNs do not show all the critical boot information on a frame-buffer console output. If you are in diagnostic mode during boot, the monitor doesn't show results until it completes. If some process is stuck (missing NFS or fibre-channel hard mounts, memory tests, etc) then you need to be able to see it to fix the problem. Plus, console frame-buffers only give you 25 lines of output that you can't scroll back.
The only small hitch is security. The new SCs (on T5220s) have SSH built in, but the older V240s and V490s use telnet which some security people balk at. The solution that we used is to put the older system SCs on a private LAN. Access to that private LAN from our intranet is via a SSH enabled dual-homed (non-routing) workstation with local user accounts. We SSH to that workstation & then telnet to the SC on the relevant server. That solution allows me to access our servers that are 40 miles away, saving response time to solve customer problems. A crude diagram is below:
your workstation------intranet------[dual homed, non-routing workstation]------[inexpensive switch]------[server SC]
Good luck.

Performance of stacked switch

I'm installing a stack of 3x 3750G switches, which are inter-connected w/ StackWise cables.
Are stacked switches truely act as one switch w/o any performance penalty if a packet has to traverse from one switch to another in the same stack?
Would it be better to arrange the ports together on the same switch if I know they'll mostly generate local traffice among themselves?
Another question I have is sould I try to distribute ports among the stacked switches as much as possible or is the stack really functioning as a unified stack??
For instance, I've got 3x 24-port 3750G's; thus a total of 72 ports. If I currently have only 24 objects (clients or switches), should I plug 8 in each switch or it doesn't make a difference if I plug all 24 objects into the same switch?

A customer asked me this exact question the other day....
The stack has an interconnect speed of 32G. Thus a packet coming in from 1/0/1 going to 3/0/1 will hit the backplane on switch 1 (speed so high you can forget about it for all intents and purposes) traverse the 32G interconnect bus, across the backplane on switch 3 to the egress port. You can consider this almost identical to the 6500 series when using the "classic" series line cards (61xx series) which likewise share a 32G backplane bus.
I have tested this with IXIA gigabit traffic generators which blasted 20 Gig of traffic with 50000 flows across the switch stack. The boxes were solid as a rock. 20Gig is rather a lot of traffic.... !!!
The only occassion when you might have a problem with this architecture is if you have multi gigabit traffic crossing the switch stack that requires QOS priority on an already heavily utilised stack. In that case you could possibly get contention for the stacking bus (unless there is a way of prioritising the traffic gaining access to the stacking bus???? There hasn't been in the past). Cisco's answer to that would be twofold.
1.If you required such traffic patterns with such heavy traffic and QOS requirements then you should be using a 6500 series switch with high end interface blades.
2.That the 3750 supports ingress QOS to precisely address the problem of overloading the switch fabric.
Best regards,
Steve

ASA Redundant interfaces with stack switches

Hi All,
we have two ASA 5510 connected in failover, and a pair of cisco 2960s switch connected in stack.
Currently one interface of primary ASA is terminated on switch1 and a interface from standby is connected to switch2 as Inside, and switch1 and switch2 are in stack.
for redundancy purpose i want to use multiple interfaces of ASA for inside , so first i thought to use etherchannel , but it has a limitation that , it cannot be terminated on stack switch(as per cisco document http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/security/asa/asa91/configuration/general/interface_start.html ).
So my question is :
1. can we use redundant interface feature where 2 physical interfaces combined to a redundant interface (eg interface redundant 1) for inside redundancy purpose.
2. Can these ports from primary/standby ASA terminated on stack switches (2960s), will this work (if the switch with active port goes down, will the other port take over in the redundant interface with the other switch).
I have attached the nw diagram,
Regards,
Ashraf

Hello Ashraf,
1. can we use redundant interface feature where 2 physical interfaces combined to a redundant interface (eg interface redundant 1) for inside redundancy purpose.
Sure, you can. That's the whole purpose of the feature.
2. Can these ports from primary/standby ASA terminated on stack switches (2960s), will this work (if the switch with active port goes down, will the other port take over in the redundant interface with the other switch).
It would make sense if that happens, as the status of the interface will be on a different state than up/up so failover to the other interface will be triggered,
Regards,
Julio

Etherchannel between stack switches[3750] and standalone switch[3560]

Hi,
I have 2*3750 switches in stack as core and 1*3560 switch in access layer. I want to enable ether channel between stack switch[3750A & 3750B] and 3560 switches.
Have connected 2 links from 3560 switch to stack switch, one link to 3750A and other link to 3750B. Will it work in this way as per my requirement?
or i should enabled stacking on 3560 switch too and configure cross-stack ether channel between 3750 stack and 3560 stack. i refered few cisco documents, but the cross stack etherchannel configuration example has 3750 at both end stacks.
Rgds...
VikramS

Hi,
This should work fine as per you set up, the 3750 stack will be acting as one switch, which means that the ether-channel configuration should be straight forward. There is no need to stack the 3560 for this to work, also the 3560 are not stackable.
Hope this helps.

Power Redundancy problem for cisco 3750 stack switches

Hi Team,
I have installed and configured cisco 3750X series switches in stackwise. Those are having dual power supply.
Power redundancy test performed:
1. Removed one of the power supply and inserted it back.
2. once the first power supply is ready, removed another power supply and switch got rebooted.
please find the below stack-power output:
JP2-RDC-DIS-02#sh stack-power detail
Power Stack           Stack   Stack    Total   Rsvd    Alloc   Unused Num Num
Name                  Mode    Topolgy Pwr(W) Pwr(W) Pwr(W) Pwr(W) SW   PS
Powerstack-2          SP-PS   Stndaln 700     477     223     0       1    2
Powerstack-1          SP-PS   Stndaln 700     477     223     0       1    2
Power stack name: Powerstack-2
    Stack mode: Power sharing
    Stack topology: Standalone
    Switch 2:
        Power budget: 223
        Power allocated: 223
        Low port priority value: 22
        High port priority value: 13
        Switch priority value: 4
        Port 1 status: Not connected
        Port 2 status: Not connected
        Neighbor on port 1: 0000.0000.0000
        Neighbor on port 2: 0000.0000.0000
Power stack name: Powerstack-1
    Stack mode: Power sharing
    Stack topology: Standalone
    Switch 1:
        Power budget: 223
        Power allocated: 223
        Low port priority value: 22
        High port priority value: 13
        Switch priority value: 4
        Port 1 status: Not connected
        Port 2 status: Not connected
        Neighbor on port 1: 0000.0000.0000
        Neighbor on port 2: 0000.0000.0000
Can anyone help what went wrong here?
Thanks
Manish

Cosmetic bug
CSCui21029    3750X Stack no standalone stays in running configureation as standalone
Symptom:
When you are configuring a 3750x stack and initially putting it into a stack ring topology by configuring the following.
Switch(config)#stack-power switch 1
Switch(config-switch-stackpower)#sta
Switch(config-switch-stackpower)#no stan
Switch(config-switch-stackpower)#no standalone
You will see that in the running configuration it shows up as standalone mode
stack-power switch 1
switch mode: standalone
stack-power switch 2
switch mode: standalone
Conditions:
3750X stacks with any license level
Workaround:
none

Connecting stacked switches (SGE2010)

Hi there,
This may seem like a basic question to many of you, but I'm finding it hard to discover any relevant information on the topic.
I have 4 SGE2010P switches stacked together:
What is the best way to create a faster link between the switches? I need more than 1Gbps across them, and I'm not sure of the best way to do this without risking a broadcast storm. I'd preferably like to be able to use some sort of LACP/Etherchannel between Switch 4 and any of the other switches.
Thanks in advance,
Ben.

Disclaimer
The Author of this posting offers the information contained within this posting without consideration and with the reader's understanding that there's no implied or expressed suitability or fitness for any purpose. Information provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as rendering professional advice of any kind. Usage of this posting's information is solely at reader's own risk.
Liability Disclaimer
In no event shall Author be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of use, data or profit) arising out of the use or inability to use the posting's information even if Author has been advised of the possibility of such damage.
Posting
If it's performance you seek, change your daisy chain topology to a star configuration, i.e. one switch has direct links to the other 3. If you really believe you need more bandwidth, if the switches support it, you could also make some or all the direct links Etherchannel links. (Insure your hashing algorithm, if configurable, is suitable for your traffic flows.)
Assuming your switches also support STP, for redundancy, in the star configuration, you can interconnect two of your leaf switches (and configure star root to be logical root).
BTW, neither a star topology, or your shown (redundant - physical ring) daisy chain topology have much to do with broadcast storms.

SG500X Stacking Switch

Hello,
I have 2 SG500X and it's stacked together, when it's stacked it's acts by default as Layer 2 & 3
Now what i want to configure as following:
2 vlans
vlan 2
vlan 3
i made int vlan 2 and give it an ip
and i made ip default gateway for it
so i can access it through ssh
ok, now everything is fine and i can reach it through the network
i want to assign some ports to belong to vlan 2
for example ports 1/1/1 to 1/1/48 belongs to vlan 2
and i want to assign some ports to belong to vlan 3
for example ports 2/1/1 to 2/1/48 belongs to vlan 3
what's working is vlan 2
But vlan 3 is NOT working at all
Any thoughts what might be the problem ?

Thanks for the response. I did as you suggested, re-configured all 3 as standalone, then setup ports XG1 & XG2 in a LAG on switches A & B and connected them with 2 SFP-H10GB-CU1M SFP+ Copper Cable modules. Interestingly, the LAG speed shows as 1000M when I would have expected it to show as 10G. I haven't run tests yet to determine if this is just a display issue or what.
I intend to then connect switch A & C using a LAG on ports XG3 & XG4 using SFP-10G-SR SFP+ optical module.
FYI - the documentation wording which was a bit confusing was on page 51 of the 500 Series Admin Guide. Under "stack ports" it had this text,
"You can manually reconfigured S1/S2 and S3/S4 as network ports or stack ports as desired. All the stack ports on a device operates in standalone mode will automatically become regular Ehternet network ports."
This suggested to me that all 4 ports could potentially be configured as stack ports. The wording could be a bit more precise.

3750 Stack Switch Issue

Hi
I have Stack of 7 3750 Switches. In that Switch 1 is master with 15 Priority and other switches are Member but because of some reason switch 1 rebooted and then Switch 2 becomes Master because it’s having 14 Priority.
We have 2 uplinks which connected on switch 1 (1/1/1) and switch 6 (6/1/1) Tengig port. Also we have 4 AP connected on switch 6.
So we observed that the Switch 1 came up and after that 3 AP is disconnected from WLC. if we disconnect the uplink port on Switch 1 (1/1/1) AP will connect the WLC and using uplink 6/1/1 but if we connect uplink port 1/1/1 and disconnect the uplink port 6/1/1 all 4 AP will disconnect from Network.
We try to connect the Uplink 1/1/1 to Switch 1 other port 1/1/2 but face the same issue. So we reconnect the port 6/1/1 and used the same link which connect on 1/1/1 to switch 7 (7/1/1) and AP will connect on WLC. So as per this troubleshooting we thought some issue with Network Module or Switch of Switch1.
So we Swap the Network module between Switch1 and Switch7 and connect the uplink on 1/1/1 but face the same issue and if we connect the same uplink on Switch 7 Ap connect to WLC.
So we thought that Switch is having issue. But before raising an RMA for Switch we observer 1 more thing that. Earlier that when the Switch 1 is Master all 4 AP's connected to WLC and working fine but when the Switch1 became rebooted and Switch2 became Master issue started. So we rebooted the Switch 2 and make switch master and found that while connecting on port 1/1/1 of Switch port AP's are able to connect to WLC and Issue resolved.
So I wants to know that is there any requirement that If the high priority switch rebooted and after came up it should not be Master then connected uplink will not work.
Also let us know what’s happen if the high priority switch came up in network. Means it’s will became Master or Menber.

Just now i Found one bug which is matching on our issue.
3750x stack fails to update ARP table after reboot causing traffic loss
BUG ID:-CSCtz98066
Symptoms: When the master switch (Switch A) is reloaded or loses power and
rejoins the stack as a member switch, any traffic stream being sent through
Switch A is unable to be received by the destination because the newly joined
member is not able to establish an ARP entry for the next hop router/switch.
Debugs confirm that Switch A does not send a GARP/ARP for the next hop, though
traffic continues to be sent to the switch.
Conditions: The symptom is observed when only Switch A has a physical
connection between the source and destination router/L3 switch. The newly
elected master (Switch B) does not.
Workaround: Ping destination from Switch A, forcing ARP request/response.
Also affected version is 12.2(58)SE and15.0(1)SE2 and we are using IOS 12.2(58)SE.
So we are going to upgrade the devices by this weekend with IOS 15.0(2)SE5.
Will update you once we upgraded the switches.

What is a stacked switch?

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