Cisco 350XG series Administration Manual page 106

Administration: Stack Management
Overview
Cisco 350XG & 550XG Series 10G Stackable Managed Switches
The devices (units) in a stack are connected through stack ports. These devices
are then collectively managed as a single logical device. In some cases, stack
ports can become members in Link Aggregation Groups (LAGs) increasing the
bandwidth of the stack port. See
The stack is based on a model of a single master/backup and multiple slaves.
The maximum number of units in a stack is as follows:
• 550 family—eight
• 350 family—four
An example of eight (relevant for the 550 family) devices connected into a stack is
shown in the following:
Stack Architecture (Chain Topology)
A stack provides the following benefits:
• Network capacity can be expanded or contracted dynamically. By adding a
unit, the administrator can dynamically increase the number of ports in the
stack while maintaining a single point of management. Similarly, units can
be removed to decrease network capacity.
• The stacked system supports redundancy in the following ways:
- The backup unit becomes the master of the stack if the original master
fails.
- The stack system supports two types of topologies: chain and ring. In
ring topology, if one of the stack ports fails, the stack continues to
function in chain topology (see
Stack Port Link Aggregation.
Stack Topology).
7
101