Connection methods between Cisco switches

For the connection between the switches, there should be more familiar two kinds: first, is stacked, two, is cascaded. The cascading approach is relatively easy to create bottlenecks between the switches, while stacking technology can increase the backplane rate, can eliminate the bottleneck of the connection between the switches, but by the limitations of distance and so on, and the number of switches is more restrictive. Cisco's switch clustering technology can be seen as a combination of tiering and cascade technology. This technique can logically combine switches that are distributed across geographically diverse areas, and can be managed uniformly. The specific implementation is to select a commander in the cluster, while the other switches are subordinate status, unified management by Commander. For the new Catalyst 3500 XL series, Catalyst 3512XL, Catalyst 3524XL, and Catalyst 3508G XL Three models can be commander, For the managed 2900 and 1900 series, the switch cluster can be joined and the traditional tiering technology is raised to a new level using Cisco's newest switching cluster technology. It is said to be a commander for the 2900XL series.

This series of products for medium-sized enterprises and institutions, in providing high performance and low cost, while reducing the complexity, and easy integration into existing networks. It allows network administrators to use a standard Web browser. Manage geographically dispersed switches from anywhere on the network with a single IP address.

Specific examples are as follows:

Suppose the network Center uses Cisco's Catalyst 6506 switch, and the cluster commander uses Catalyst 3508 GXL between the commander of the cluster and the central switch to achieve 4,000 trillion connections through gigabit connections or through GEC, And in the cluster internal use 3500, 2900, 1900 of the combination, through FEC and other ways connected. You can then manage the entire cluster by assigning separate IP addresses to the cluster.

The switch cluster technology supports up to 16 switches and can provide up to 16*48 ports.