Connection method between Cisco switches

There are two types of connections between switches: Stack and cascade. Cascade is easy to cause bottlenecks between switches. Although stacking technology can increase the backplane speed and eliminate the bottleneck between switches, the number of vswitches is limited by distance and so on. The switch cluster technology introduced by Cisco can be regarded as a combination of stack and cascade technology. This technology can logically combine switches distributed across different geographic ranges for unified management. The specific implementation method is to select a Commander in the cluster, while other switches are subordinate and managed by the Commander in a unified manner. The Catalyst 3512XL, Catalyst 3524XL, and Catalyst 3500g xl models in the new Catalyst 3508 XL series can all be Commander, while the managed 2900 and 1900 Series can both be added to the switch cluster, use Cisco's latest switch cluster technology to bring traditional stack technology to a new level. It is said that the 2900XL series can also become Commander.

This series of products is intended for medium-sized enterprises and enterprises. It provides high performance and low cost, reduces complexity, and is easy to integrate into existing networks. It allows network administrators to use a standard Web browser. Use a single IP address to manage geographically dispersed switches from anywhere on the network.

For example:

Assume that the network center uses the Cisco Catalyst 6506 switch, while the Commander of the cluster uses the Catalyst 3508 GXL to connect the Commander of the cluster to the switch of the center through a gigabit connection or a 4 Gigabit connection through GEC, in the cluster, a combination of 3500, 2900, and 1900 is used to connect to each other through FEC. Then assign an independent IP address to the cluster to manage the entire cluster.

The vswitch cluster technology supports up to 16 vswitches and can provide up to 16*48 ports.