Catalyst 3548 Switch Usage In Access Layer

admin_2 · ‎06-24-2002

Is it good or bad design to take nine Catalyst 3548 switches, daisy chain them together, then uplink one of them to a distribution layer? I feel that this may be the incorrect way to do this. Should each individual switch have one or more uplinks into the distribution layer, as opposed to relying on one or two GE uplinks?

Report Inappropriate Content · ‎06-24-2002

By IEEE recommendation, the Layer 2 (L2) Spanning Tree diamter should be no more than seven hops, which this design

would exceed.

In addition, if a link fails on the top switch, all the bottom switches are disconnected from the distribution layer.

Usually this comes down to cost. It might be more expensive to have redundant links from each switch to the distribution layer. This is the recommendation in most cases. If not possible, perhaps three switch stacks with each stack cabled back to the distribution layer.