Gigastack and normal fibre in 3524 stack.

[nkariyawasam]

I am having 5 numbers of 3524-PWR swtches.

Just to describe the scenario, I'll name these switches A,B,C,D and E.

Also, since each switch having 2 Gigabit interfaces, I'll name these ports as A1,A2, B1, B2 and so on.

3 switches out of 5 are installed in the first floor of the building. Remaining two switches are installed in the second floor.

I am going to stack using gigastack (copper ) cables. If I do cascaded connectivity for the first floor switches, A1, B1 and C1 slots will be used. Hence, A2, B2 and C2 are free on the first floor switches.

Similarly, the module slots D2 and E2 are free in the second floor switch stack.

Now I am trying to use normal fibre running between two floors to interconnect the two switch stacks ( using WS-G5484 module).

If I use more than one fibre ( to achieve higher bandwidth between stacks), can I use more than one fibre connected in the following way ?

ie. C2 ---D2 and B2---E2 ?

[jhalldn · Accepted solution]

Hi,

When using L2 switches, you must configure Etherchannels to achieve higher bandwith and to use both fiber pars. For this to work, the both ports must belong to the same switch. Hence - if using GBIC you will not be able to stack using GBIC for some switches.

If you dont use Etherchannel, the fiber between the floors will be used as backup within the spanning-tree domain. You can split VLAN between to to fiber links and do some load-balancing.