Cascading Catalyst Switches

[feisty.fawn]

We just purchased (3) WS-C2960-24CT-S and (1) 3750G, what's the proper way to cascade this switches? Do I need to use crossover cables from port to port? Do I need to change the mode for the ports to use?

Thanks.

[rsimoni]

what do you exactly mean by cascade the switches?

I guess you are not meaning 'to stack' to 4 switches together as you cannot do so.

If you just need to interconnect those switches together the type of cable you use is irrelevant as all the ports support auto-mdix, which is a feature which allows to use crossover or straight cable indeferrently.

Traditionally you should have used cross over cables between switches (if you are a purist of networking you could still do so).  See more >

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable

The ports between switches are usually trunk ports... but this is not a dogma, you can have access ports too.

Riccardo

[flokki123]

hi,

it depends on the setup of your network, i guess the 3 2960 switches are the access ones and the 3750g is the distri/core switch.

if so its a normal star topology and you can just connect one cable from each of the 2960 switches to one port of the 3750. you can also do etherchanneling and create a logical link with 2 or more physical links to the core switch.

you can also connect mulitple cable between the switches but make sure STP is enabled if you creating a loop.

STP should be enabled by default.

if you leave the port settings to "auto" then you dont need cross over cable to connect the switches.

if you hardcode the ports then its possible that you need cross over cables, as some cisco switches disable the midx feature when you hardcode them.

all ports are set to "access" by default so if you only connect the switches and your pc´s to the ports you gonna be fine.

if you want to work with multiple vlans you have to use "trunk" ports at some point.

florian

[feisty.fawn]

Thanks flokki123, much appreciated. I intended to make the 3 (now 4) Catalyst as access and 3750 as my core/distribution switch.

[flokki123]

hi feisty,

shouldnt be a problem.

i would defenetly use etherchanneling to build redundant links and this will enhance the troughput from the access layer to the distri/core layer as well.

if you are running critical applications or this network is very crucial for your business then i would think about getting a second 3750 and making the distri/core redundant was well.

the 3750 are stackable so this would a good solution.

florian

[feisty.fawn]

I have 2 Catalyst 3750 (a normal 24 port and a PoE 48 ports), I planned on stacking both 3750. Is that advisable for a redundant solution?

Thanks.

[flokki123]

hi feisty,

like mentioned above, it always depends on your network setup, but stacking switches, if you have the ablitity, is always a good idea in my opinion for 2 reasons.

1. it simplifies the managment, as both switches are managed via 1 ip address and 1 management interface.

2. redundant uplinks(etherchannel) can be terminated on each switch in the stack and therefore increase redundancy.

florian