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Solved
Configure switches to be redundant
Posted on 2014-02-06
I have purchased 4 DELL s55 switches. 2 will be installed on my Server Room and 2 in an office across the warehouse.
My intention is to connect these office locations using fiber cable. I purchased 2 for each location to have redundancy in case one of the switches goes bad.
I was told by the vendors to stack the switches, but stacking switches will not provide me the redundancy I want and please correct me if I am wrong.
I have also been quoted for a MultiMode 6 strand fiber line to be used in the connection between these locations. Which I think it will be good for redundancy (2 strands per switch = 4 strands) and will give me 2 extra strands for backup.
Does anyone has an idea of what else would I need in order to configure my switches in redundancy (physical and configuration wise)?
Thank you.
My intention is to connect these office locations using fiber cable. I purchased 2 for each location to have redundancy in case one of the switches goes bad.
I was told by the vendors to stack the switches, but stacking switches will not provide me the redundancy I want and please correct me if I am wrong.
I have also been quoted for a MultiMode 6 strand fiber line to be used in the connection between these locations. Which I think it will be good for redundancy (2 strands per switch = 4 strands) and will give me 2 extra strands for backup.
Does anyone has an idea of what else would I need in order to configure my switches in redundancy (physical and configuration wise)?
Thank you.
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5 Comments
Active 2 days ago
I would look up Network Switch Redundancy and Spanning Tree Protocol and see what sorts of situations present themselves. Should be a very good start. STP may seem an oblique approach but the things are tied together and you will need it anyway.
Active today
I was told by the vendors to stack the switches, but stacking switches will not provide me the redundancy I want and please correct me if I am wrong.Unless Dell is doing something totally different than other vendors with stacking capability, you will still have redundancy with the switches stacked.
I have also been quoted for a MultiMode 6 strand fiber line to be used in the connection between these locations. Which I think it will be good for redundancy (2 strands per switch = 4 strands) and will give me 2 extra strands for backup.One of the drawbacks to using a single "cable" with multiple lines is in the event that the cable gets cut, you lose all your connectivity. If you want real protection, you would have multiple cables taking different paths. Granted, it's redundancy against a significant type of failure, but you asked. ;-)
Yes, you definitely want to stack the switches. You also want to put both fibers on each side into a port-channel (LAG), this will alleviate spanning tree seeing them as separate uplinks. Also, I don't know if those particular switches support UDLD, but if so, you definitely want to enable that on both ends.
Active 2 days ago
What type of redundancy do you want?
--> " ... quoted for a MultiMode 6 strand fiber line ...."
I have to agree with donjohnston
A single fiber cable with 6 strands means that one cut cable and everything is down. Two runs over diverse paths would give you better redundancy. It's also more expensive, but if you need the redundancy it should be worth the cost.
--> " ... quoted for a MultiMode 6 strand fiber line ...."
I have to agree with donjohnston
A single fiber cable with 6 strands means that one cut cable and everything is down. Two runs over diverse paths would give you better redundancy. It's also more expensive, but if you need the redundancy it should be worth the cost.
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