Last night, I wanted to add an extra Brocade ICX 6610 to a production ICX 6610. I planned on stacking the two togther, because I see some good benefits of doing this over VRRP and MCT. So I did this stack configuration during production hours and didnt see any downtime at all. However, I did notice one thing that was different than doing this stack config on the FCX series. I enabled stacking on the production switch and on the switch I planned on putting in. But, on the production switch, I did not run the command 'stack secure-setup'. What I noticed was that when I put the cables in place, with the 'stack enable' command run on both switches, it did the stack on its own. I actually moved cables around and you could see it build the topology as I put the stacking cables in the back of the switches. Im impressed.
I also ran the 'hitless-failover enable' and 'stack mac-address' commands. You can see below what the stack looks like.
This is the retired Shane Killen personal blog, an IT technical blog about configs and topics related to the Network and Security Engineer working with Cisco, Brocade, Check Point, and Palo Alto and Sonicwall. I hope this blog serves you well. -- May The Lord bless you and keep you. May He shine His face upon you, and bring you peace.
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That is good to know. One difference I've noticed with the ICX6610 is that you can stack with 4x40GE cables per ICX6610. In your image I only see two per ICX6610. Any reason?
ReplyDelete:) Dont recall, but see here:
Deletehttp://www.shanekillen.com/2014/07/brocade-icx6610-switch-stacking-cables.html
Hi Shane,
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me why did you prefer stacking to MCT + VRRP ?
Thanks
Personally, I do like stacking better than a protocol. Why? Because there is less to worry about in stacking than in VRRP. I do think there is a time to use protocols though, so dont get me wrong. I just think that anytime it makes sense, you stack over using a protocol. Here is an example: Say VRRP acts up. Then you have a network problem to worry about and fix. Its rare, if ever, that I have a stacking problem. Plus, I think you can connect things up in a way where you can get better redundancy. Less network overhead, better redundancy, etc. Just my thoughts on it.
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