Enabling And Disabling The Stacking-Support Option; Recommendations For Placing Switches For Stacked Operation - Extreme Networks ExtremeSwitching 5420 Series Hardware Installation Manual

Building Stacks

Enabling and Disabling the Stacking-Support Option

The stacking-support option is enabled by default for many switch and option card configurations.
However, some configurations require you to enable the stacking-support option before a switch can
participate in a stack.
•
To enable stacking-support, issue the enable stacking-support command.
You must enable stacking-support individually for every switch in the stack that does not have
stacking support enabled by default.
•
To disable stacking support, configure the switch data ports to use the Ethernet protocol instead of
the stacking protocol.
Use the disable stacking-support command.

Recommendations for Placing Switches for Stacked Operation

For best results in a SummitStack configuration, follow these recommendations for physically situating
your equipment:
•
Use the shortest possible stacking cables to connect the switches in the stack. This reduces the
likelihood that the stacking cables might accidentally be damaged or disconnected. Stacking cables
are available in lengths ranging from 0.3 meters to 100 meters.
•
When possible, place all switches for the stack in the same rack or in adjacent racks. This facilitates
using shorter stacking cables.
•
The primary switch, or node, is the switch through which you will perform the initial stack
configuration, using the console port. For simplicity and ease of connecting the stacking cables, plan
to designate the top switch in a vertical physical stack as the primary switch. If switches are installed
in several adjacent racks, place the primary switch at one end of the row.
•
Physically locate the intended primary and backup nodes adjacent to each other, and plan to
connect these nodes to each other directly so that ExtremeXOS application synchronization traffic is
localized to a single stack link.
•
On the primary node, connect the Ethernet management port to your management network.
•
To provide management access to the stack in case of a failure in the primary switch, connect all
switches that will participate in redundancy to your management network using the Ethernet
management port on each switch.
•
Use stacking cables to interconnect the stack nodes into a ring topology (see
Recommended for Stacking
stack.
Follow the recommendations in
software for your stack.
The recommended procedures for installing and interconnecting a stack are found in
Physical Stack
on page 53). Include only the nodes that you expect to be active in the
Recommendations for Configuring Stacks
on page 66.
ExtremeSwitching 5420 Series Hardware Installation Guide
Enabling and Disabling the Stacking-Support Option
Ring Topology:
on page 62 to configure the
Setting up the
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