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Best Practice for Switch Stack Uplinks

MikeMoss
Level 1
Level 1

What is everyone's best practice for switch stack uplinks?

If there's a stack containing 8 switches and we can fit 8 uplinks in a port channel, should there be an uplink from each switch in the stack? 

 

Or 2 uplinks (master + standby), 2 Uplinks (members only), 2 uplinks (master + member), some other combination, etc.

I see different opinions, best practices, etc.

 

7 Replies 7

@MikeMoss 

 Dont believe it will exist a best practice for that. It will depend on how much traffic you have on the stack, how many ports you have available on the up-layer switches.

 Now, 8 switch in one stack for me is too much. For that I believe the best practice is 4 switches. 


@Flavio Miranda wrote:

@MikeMoss 

 Now, 8 switch in one stack for me is too much. For that I believe the best practice is 4 switches. 


Cannot comment on the later stackable switches, but on the 3750 series, the only "issue" we had with stacks with a large number of members, CLI interaction was painfully slow, as in you would enter a line, and wonder if the stacked just died from the delayed response.

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

First, consider, is there any affinity between Etherchannel port usage and switch member ports?  If not, what do you hope to achieve?

Second, don't know if Cisco still has this recommendation, but way back for 3750 stacks, they recommended uplinks not be placed on a master switch.  This to avoid any additional loading on the master.

Personally, I've dealt with edge stacks, up to max number, where we usually only had a pair of uplinks, on different switch members, just for redundancy.  If up link bandwidth was a concern, we usually used higher bandwidth uplink ports rather than increase number of uplinks.  Two major reasons for that, first if you're using optics, lots of transceivers can become more expensive than higher bandwidth ports.  Second, as Etherchannel and/or most L3 ECMP don't dynamically LB, higher bandwidth ports perform better.

If you're really worried about performance, especially on a stack with many members, either use multiple smaller member stacks, or use a chassis, the latter often price competitive for a max member stack vs. large number of slots chassis.

Two uplink from master and standby config as PO.

MHM


@MHM Cisco World wrote:

Two uplink from master and standby config as PO.

MHM


Sorry, a bit unclear, perhaps only to me.

Are you suggesting two uplinks each from master and standby, i.e. total 4, or two uplinks, one uplink each from master and standby, i.e. total 2?

In either case, any particular reason suggesting uplinks be connected to master and standby?  (I asked because, as I noted in my prior reply, I recall on the 3750 series, Cisco actually recommended the opposite, for, on the face of it, a reasonable reason.  From my experience, it didn't really seem to matter, and especially as you could not always guarantee what switch is the master [at least on that series], unclear it's worth the bother.)

Leo Laohoo
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Most logical best practice is:  DO NOT put an uplink to the switch master.  

Why?  Because the switch master usually crashes.  

Even with a stack size of 6, we only have two uplinks.  

Etherchannel depends on the upstream switch if it is in a VSS or HSRP.

balaji.bandi
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

Its all depends on the requirement and throughput need and mode of the devices you using.

Example : if i use Cat 9300 switches has 10/25 uplink module, its expensive, why do i need to more uplinks its cost more (if you keep adding modules for uplink)

so 10/25G x2 is good enough for the access switch (again this will be argued based on the requirement)

so you spread these 2 modules Master and Slave - if master Fails (slave will be the next one who become master logically - so 10/25 should be good enough kind of traffic to serve, until you replace or repair the master uplink or master switch.

This is my views for in general Access layers. even you put more links as guide maximum link support the LB method is same.

 

BB

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