MS120 un-stackable, What is the best solution?

[Roey1984]

Hello

We are moving to a new office within a few months.

We bought 2 units of Meraki MS120-48LP

Only after I Bought It, did I understand that it`s not stackable.

We currently have a need for at least 70 ports across the compound.

What is the best practice in terms of performance? and configuration of the MS series?

Both MS120 will be connected to an MX75 Router.

Thank you very much!

[DarrenOC]

Hi @Roey1984

I would connect the uplinks of each MS120 to a LAN port on the MX75.  Whilst you can't physically stack them you can make use of the "virtual stacking" feature and bulk configure switch ports.

[PhilipDAth]

You could also connect the two switches together using a pair of Ethernet cables and enable link aggregation.

https://documentation.meraki.com/General_Administration/Tools_and_Troubleshooting/Link_Aggregation_a... 

[GIdenJoe]

The topology you need to look for is indeed like @PhilipDAth mentioned having an aggregation of at least 2 links between both switches.

Also you should connect both switches with 1 link towards the MX so you basically have a triangle with two bases.
By default because you use an aggregation the link between the switches will not be blocked but one of the links to the MX will be blocked until the link between the switches fails.

Traffic by default will travel from one switch directly to the MX for the internet and coming from the other switch it will first pass to the other switch and then to the firewall.

Best of success!

[Roey1984]

Joe

In terms of redundancy:

Did you mean that it would be best to connect each switch to the MX with a single RJ45 cable? 

and an additional RJ45 cable between the switches themselves?

Isn't a bit of overhead? it would require me to configure the aggregation of 2 ports (1 per switch)

isn't the virtual stacking enough?

In terms of performance, what are the benefits of transporting traffic between:

If a client resides on Switch A, and wants to access the internet, it needs to go through Switch B; as the next:

Switch(A) --> Switch(B) -->MX --> Internet

Isn't it better to have

The Client resides on Switch A --> connected directly to MX --> Internet .?

thank you for your time and very explained details mate

Appericated

[GIdenJoe · Accepted solution]

What I meant was 1 cable between each switch and the firewall and 2 cables between the switches as aggregation.

The reason why I do this is because intra VLAN traffic between users doesn't have to pass the firewall if both devices reside on each switch freeing up CPU cycling on the MX to purely pass packets between local VLAN's and the WAN/Internet.

Also virtual stacking is a dashboard feature not an actual network feature.  Virtual stacking just lists all switchports on one page for awesome simultaneous management of switchports on several different switches.  But it does not do anything like actual stacking where you have stacking bandwidth starting at 80 Gbps between switchmembers.

So recap:

1 individual port on each switch towards the MX where on one switch there will be a blocked port

2 ports in an aggregation between both switches.