Understanding Ex4200 Virtual Chassis Components - Juniper JUNOS OS 10.4 - FOR EX REV 1 Manual

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Understanding EX4200 Virtual Chassis Components

Copyright © 2010, Juniper Networks, Inc.
Chapter 37: EX4200 Virtual Chassis—Overview, Components, and Configurations
J-Web user interface and apply various device management functions to all members
of the Virtual Chassis configuration.
The serial console port and dedicated out-of-band management port that are on the
rear panel of the individual switches have global virtual counterparts when the switches
are interconnected in a Virtual Chassis configuration. A virtual console allows you to
connect to the master by connecting a terminal directly to the console port of any member
switch. A virtual management Ethernet (VME) interface allows you to remotely manage
the Virtual Chassis configuration by connecting to the out-of-band management port of
any member switch through a single IP address. See "Understanding Global Management
of an EX4200 Virtual Chassis" on page 899.
An EX4200 Virtual Chassis configuration has a master and a backup, each of which has
a Routing Engine. These redundant Routing Engines handle all routing protocol processes
and control the Virtual Chassis configuration. See "High Availability Features for EX Series
Switches Overview" on page 23 for further information on redundant Routing Engines
and additional high availability features.
A Virtual Chassis configuration supports a variety of user environments, because it can
be composed of different models of EX4200 switches, with either 24 or 48 access ports,
and with these having either full (24 or 48 ports) or partial (8 ports) Power over Ethernet
(PoE) port capabilities. You can select different switch models to support various
functions. For example, you might set up one Virtual Chassis access switch configuration
composed of the full PoE models to support users sitting in cubicles equipped with PCs
and VoIP phones. You could set up another Virtual Chassis configuration with partial PoE
models to support the company's internal servers and configure one more Virtual Chassis
configuration with partial PoE models to support the company's external servers.
Alternatively, the Virtual Chassis configuration can be used as a distribution switch. For
this type of deployment, you might select the EX4200-24F model to connect the
distribution switch to multiple access switches located in different buildings on the
campus.
Understanding EX4200 Virtual Chassis Components on page 893
Understanding How the Master in an EX4200 Virtual Chassis Is Elected on page 898
Understanding EX4200 Virtual Chassis Switch Version Compatibility on page 905
Understanding EX4200 Virtual Chassis Link Aggregation on page 902
Understanding EX4200 Virtual Chassis Configuration on page 904
EX4200 Switch Models on page 34
An EX4200 Virtual Chassis configuration allows you to interconnect two to ten Juniper
Networks EX4200 Ethernet Switches and run them as a single network entity. While it
is true that you need at least two interconnected switches to take advantage of Virtual
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