2 MS's connected, best practices

[SKSVFD]

In my main data center I've got 2 MS420's, not in a stack. I've got 4 10g fiber lines going from the datacenter to another building and on that side I have a MS225. I'd like to get as much bandwidth as possible between the two as I've got a backup appliance getting moved to the other building.  Does it make more sense to have all of the connections going to just 1 MS420 to avoid a loop? Or do 2 connections to each MS420 for failover? Do I aggregate ports on both sides? 

[PhilipDAth · Accepted solution]

My first thought is what size connection does the backup appliance have to the switch?  Gigabit?  A pair of 10Gbe?

If you ignore redundancy, a 4 port Etherchannel from the MS225 to a single MS420 will give the most throughput and is particularly easy.

You could stack the two MS420's and then split the 4 x 10Gbe connections across them in an EtherChannel.  The only downside is when doing firmware updates both switches will get rebooted at the same time.  If this is not an issue, then I'd do this.

[SKSVFD]

Philip, thanks for the response. The current backup appliance has 4 1GB connections, however we want room for growth later. Currently I only have 2 of the 10GB fiber connections hooked up. The redundancy isn't really necessary in this case. If one of the switches go out it would be really easy to move connections.

Firmware updates on both switches at the same time aren't an issue either. If switching from 2 independent switches to 1 stack is it a pretty straightforward process? Or will a lot of configuration need to be changed on the ports?

[cmr]

@SKSVFD stacking them shouldn't mess up the config for each port, and I'd normally never not do it, but see my post about 355s...

[PhilipDAth]

>If switching from 2 independent switches to 1 stack is it a pretty straightforward process?

Trivial.

[redsector]

@PhilipDAth I´d agree.

But Sometimes when upgrading and rebooting the stack there is a STP trouble while the stack is booting and the firmware is not finished booting up and not finished creating the aggregat / etherchannel.

[Inderdeep]

@SKSVFD : This is for you, best practice for MS design !

https://documentation.meraki.com/Architectures_and_Best_Practices/Cisco_Meraki_Best_Practice_Design/...

[SKSVFD]

Thank you for this link!

Scott

[Thygesen]

Great Page !  

Thanx ! Always something to pick up !