The idea came to me in September of 2018, on the elevator, thinking about how snowflake crystals form when one of those imaginary snowflakes fell from a green cloud and landed on a Switchmas tree. Hmmm, I thought, has anyone built a such a thing. A glorious facsimile of a holiday tree in network switch form? I sprang to my computer to see if anyone had been so spirited before. To my surprise, I found nothing. There were trees of books, wireless access points, a few desktops, and laptops but no Switchmas tree. With this knowledge, I tucked my Switchmas vision under my mind’s idea blanket until the holidays were upon us and I could unleash it on the world.
Cut to December 10th. My Switchmas vision was ready to awaken and become reality. I knew there were going to be some technical challenges and, from my research, I knew I was breaking new ground. We’d need to do some planning and experimentation to make this work. First, I decided to plan out how we could stack our switches to create a tree shape as well as maintain stability. After all, this quantity of switches was going to be quite heavy. At first, I thought octagons to heptagon to hexagon and on and on to the top. 
So we went and tested it out without really doing the math. And this is the squat little Switchmas bush that was the result.
We quickly realized that we didn’t have enough switches. During our design discussions, we had also decided that this would best be made into a Fullstackmas tree but, even then, each level is only 1.72 inches (4.38cm) high. So, to create a 5ft /1.5m high tree, it would require 34 levels worth of switches. Starting with octagons, that would require about 173 devices. Since we are swapping out some lab equipment we had about 100 MX’s and MS’s to work with so that architecture would not work. The first attempt was not a waste though, as it proved the configuration was stable and did not require any internal support. Our plan to power the switches from the inside with multiple power strips was a success. I could see a Merry Switchmas in our future with just a few more tweaks.
We broke it down and rebuilt starting with hexagons to get more height with the equipment we had available. At the end of build two, we had more height but not nearly enough and the tree was crooked at the top.
Again, we learned more and I also realized I would need to order a tree’s worth of green Christmas lights as well to add some additional Meraki holiday flare to our growing Switchmas tree. The dream was becoming a reality, but I could really only justify the resources for one more rebuild since the man-hour count was climbing for this passion project. The third and final build would need to be the one.
I’m glad to say it was!!!!
We only reached about 4 ½ feet in height, but we got everything powered on, and the entire Meraki stack is represented (Even a nod to our bygone MC phone). The software-only products are represented by iPad graphics. The green Christmas lights really tied the whole production together. Plus, with about 40 open browser windows we were able to make all the switch ports blink.
So, a lot goes into building a Fullstackmas tree. I added it all up, and here are the results:
|
Model |
QTY |
|
MS220-8P |
12 |
|
MS22 |
3 |
|
MS220-24 |
2 |
|
MS220-24P |
1 |
|
MS225-24P |
43 |
|
MX84 |
36 |
|
MR32 |
4 |
|
MR33 |
1 |
|
MR53 |
4 |
|
MR84 |
1 |
|
MC74 |
1 |
|
MV12 |
1 |
|
MV22 |
1 |
|
MV21 |
1 |
|
Total MSRP |
$328,806.00 |
Soooo yeah, that's a bit pricey for a holiday tree, but it’s so easy to manage. I mean, in just a couple of clicks you can see the entire topology:
The next question of course is: where do we go from here? Well, next year I’m hoping to go up to 8Ft/2.5m Switchmas tree and get even more Meraki products represented. But for now, I want to thank Adam B., CJ, and everyone else who helped make my dream of building a Switchmas / Fullstackmas tree possible. I would also like to wish everyone far and wide a very happy holidays from our Meraki family to yours.
