Merry Switchmas cloud networking boys and girls.  It’s that most wonderful time of the year again and Switchmas is upon us.  You may remember from 2017’s Gnome Network Topology diagram and 2018’s Switchmas bush.  I know I called it a Switchmas tree but let’s be honest it was a little bit stubby.  It may have been appropriate for a San Francisco sized apartment but it really wasn’t becoming of the grandness of Meraki HQ. So this year I put my engineer thinking cap on and came up with a bigger, better, more Switchmatastical plan.  As I thought about what I wanted to accomplish I needed a single goal to strive towards.   How tall should it be the tree be this year? Last year I dreamed of an 8Ft tree. Then it struck me.  This year the Switchmas tree must be TTT. Taller than Todd. That’s Todd Nightingale our GM who is about six foot four inches.  Now that seemed like a lofty goal compared to the four and a half foot entry from the last year. If I was going to reach these heights I would need to upgrade my planning tools first to previsualize the feasibility of the structure.   Last year I went too wide and the design used up far too many switches to reach the 4.5 Ft height.  I also needed to plan for the subtle Christmas tree slope necessary for it to really look like a tree.  I realized to get a more accurate idea on the height I’d need to go 3D. So a rendered a rough model of what the tree would look like starting with our deeper MS350 models of switches in alternating pentagons at the bottom about 14 switches high and then moving up to layers of 4 MS225 which we would need to slowly taper in to get the tree shape just right.  We were lucky this year that we performed a major upgrade to our training lab environment this year and I was able to reserve the stock of replaced switches for my holiday project as well which meant I was pretty sure I could achieve the TTT height requirement.    Another tough decision that I needed to make was power.  Would we attempt to power each switch and firewall and connect them to the network as we did last year?  As amazingly cool as it was to be able to blink all the lights and configure a rediculous topology in Dashboard for the tree last year our facilities department was rightly concerned that the increased scope of the tree this year would be a monumental fire hazard since we would need to cram an estimated 33 power strips in the trunk cavity of the tree along with the heat of all the switch blowing directly onto them.  It would also be obnoxiously loud as well. So we made the tough decision to go with fashion before function and forgo power and connectivity to the tree. I also had a personal goal of only building the tree once instead of three separate times as we did last year to save time and my back. The base build went well in only 2 hours including load-in we had a solid start, no thanks to CJ’s dog Dixie just laying around and not helping. We played around with rotation angles and the slow tapering to produce a pleasant tree angle and in another 2 hours of switch sculpting, we had a pretty solid Switchmas tree.   Next came the lights.  We had a couple of strings of green lights from last year but it was clear that our tree was would need a light upgrade as well. So I ordered up two new strands of LED green/white fairy lights and found another string of white Christmas lights in a storage closet that I adapted.  I also thought it might be nice to a sign with a little Switchmas cheer on it as well so I ordered that up as well. After that, it was time to decorate and make sure we represented all our product lines, MR, MX, MS, SM, MV, MI, and MG.  I even snuck an MC in there. We must honor our past as we look towards the future. And when it was all said and done we had a gorgeous, glorious, holiday spectacular of a Switchmas tree.   The whole office really fell in love with our Switchmas tree and it started trending on LinkedIn.  My final task was to make sure I had succeeded with my Taller than Todd goal and we were lucky enough to have him stop by to check out the Switchmas tree and take a photo with us, thanks, Todd.   So I’m sure you are thinking what are the stats on that tree?  What would it take for me to replace my run of the mill Christmas tree at home with one of these cloud-managed beauties?   Model QTY MS220-8 20 MS22 3 MS220-24 2 MS225-24P 63 MS350-24P 13 MS350-48 43 MS410 3 MS420 1 MX84 25 MX65 15 Z1 7 Z3 5 MV21 1 MV12W 5 MV22 4 MV32 1 Eyepatch 1 MR26 1 MR42 1 MR53 5 MR30H 5 MR84 2 MG21E 1 Total 227   So yeah, that quite a bit of gear.  With one year of Meraki licensing the MSRP on this Switchmas tree is just over $1,000,000 USD.  So I’m not saying it’s cheap but neither is this quality of Switchmas cheer. You’ll also need a pretty strong floor since this sucker weighs in at 1700 Lbs or 771 KG.    So just like last year, we turn to think about what we can improve next year.  We didn’t get quite to 8Ft/2.5m as we pondered last year but we sure got close.  We are also thinking of adding a small fireplace to hang some stockings that we can fill with excellent stocking stuffer Meraki accessories and maybe some other new products.  Let us know what you think we should add to the Switchmas tree for next year in the comments section.   A very special thanks go out to CJ Ramsey who helped me assemble the tree, Mau Hernandez Vargas for stashing all the switches for a whole year, and Matt Heim for letting me indulge my holiday madness.  Merry Switchmas to all and to all happy holidays from Meraki to you and your family.  Adam Slater & the Training & Evangelism team  ... View more

Gnome Network Topology2017 was my first holiday season at Meraki, right before our annual shutdown, and we were in need of a holiday community blog post. I thought up the idea of creating a Gnome Network Topology Diagram.  It was a fun project, but I knew the next year needed to be something a little grander.   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. Pre-visualization So we went and tested it out without really doing the math.  And this is the squat little Switchmas bush that was the result.   Switchmas Tree v1 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.   Switchmas Tree v2   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!!!!   Left to right, Miss Dixie, CJ Ramsey, Adam Bollinger, Adam Slater  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:   Switchmas Tree L2 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.   Fullstackmas Tree Final     MS gnome and MV gnome were here — they've been safely returned home! ... View more