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First question here. I have a new scenario that I am not sure on how to achieve.

I have a stack of two Dell N3024 switches (our core stack), that I need to add two more units to. However, these two new units are too far for a stacking cable.

Is there a way for me to have a two Dell N3024 stacked with a stacking cables, also stacked with another two Dell N3024 stacked with a stacking cable, but having these two separate stacks stacked together using fibre. Allowing them to be managed by a single IP?

172.16.2.1 N3024 Unit 1 Stacking Cable N3024 Unit 2

Fibre from Unit 1 to unit 3 Fibre from unit 2 to unit 4

N3024p Unit 3 Stacking Cable N3024p Uni 4

I hope this makes sense, thanks in advance.

Kind Regards,

Alister

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  • Welcome ... I was wondering how far apart the switches want to be, given you can get 3m stack cables
    – jonathanjo
    Oct 3, 2018 at 9:03
  • Hi Jonathan, They will be about 15m apart, in different physical rooms. It isn't ideal, but when this site was designed, it was not designed with IT in mind. It is hard to explain the design. This is two buildings served as one site, so devices in one building go to one switch room, devices in the other building go to a different switch room. But I still want to be able to manage the 'core' by one IP address, if possible. But primarily so that we can give everything the same default gateway, which will also help with business continuity.
    – Alister Hill
    Oct 3, 2018 at 9:12
  • If it was me, I'd run the "far" switch as pure switch, keep the "core" switch unchanged, so that no long link had proprietary technology -- for me that's one of the main points of ethernet and IP, after all -- but perhaps you have different/other priorities. Some Cisco switches have "Flexlink-extended" which I think does exactly what you want, if you can't find solution for Dell and would consider changing switches.
    – jonathanjo
    Oct 3, 2018 at 10:00
  • Thanks, I'll have a look at that. That is how it is currently. The main driver for researching this is that we want to enable each building to run independantly of another for BCP. But the default gateway for everything is the core stack in the first building. If this building goes down, everything stops. If we had switches in the second building that were a part of the core stack, they could continue without interuption. There will likely be another way around this. But exploring options at the moment.
    – Alister Hill
    Oct 3, 2018 at 10:12
  • I don't think Dell has the front stacking capability, and it can only stack with the stacking cable on the stacking interfaces.
    – Ron Maupin ♦
    Oct 3, 2018 at 14:33

1 Answer 1

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A couple of stacks with stack cables and you connect both stacks with fiber cables and the new group form a new single stack, really? You are looking for what Juniper called a Extended Virtual Chassis.

Some Dell switches have stacking possibilities in the ethernet port but I am afraid this option doesn't exist at the moment in Dell N30XX and I also think this is a design prone to error.

Your best option are (in order of preference): - Keep two separate stacks and connect them via fiber with a LACP. - Mount a single stack with stack cables. You will need two long stack cables crossing from each rack. In my experience, I only make 7m stack cables. I think this is the maximum.

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