Switch Is One Of The Most Widely Used Equipments In Wired Networks, Which Plays An Important Role In Communicating Users And Equipment With Each Other. 

By providing high bandwidth, many ports, support for POE technology, high throughput, and a wide range of efficient management capabilities, the switches help network experts perform their tasks the easiest way.

Today, various brands produce various types of management, non-management, bright, cloud, etc. switches.

Cisco is one of the prominent and well-known brands in this field and is famous for its variety of switches that suit the work needs of organizations.

However, Cisco switches have attracted the attention of companies and network experts due to the provision of specialized technical capabilities. In this article, we will learn about the three critical technologies of Cisco switches.

What is Switch Stacking technology?

In computer networks, the term stack refers to a group of physical switches connected through a network cable and creates a single logical switch. More precisely, control stacking is a method of combining several buttons to act as a single switch. This method works on access layer switches, but why do we need to stack switches?

Imagine you are a network administrator and have to set up a local area network in a multi-story office building. You have many access layer switches and must apply almost the same configuration on each of them. In the real world, controls must be near each other in cabling and are often installed in server racks.

Configuring switches one by one is a time-consuming process, and besides, connecting switches provide more bandwidth, so network experts use switch stacking technology. In this case, one of the switches is responsible for monitoring various types of operations performed in the stack, and the Switch is called the stack master.

The stack and all controls are introduced to the network in this mode as a single device. Therefore, considering that the configuration of all rules is troublesome and time-consuming, to solve this problem, we use stacking switches to combine buttons that are close to each other. Stack master, together with other controls, forms the stack members.

 This feature allows the network engineer to apply a single configuration to all switches easily.

To take advantage of all the potential benefits of this technology, it is essential that the switches have specific hardware and interfaces and that a particular topology is used to connect the controllers in a stack. In addition, regulators must have a dedicated port for stacking, called a stack port. In this case, a group of controls is connected by rotating through stack ports.

Stacking was considered more fancy and expensive in years past, but now it has become a core feature in most enterprise switches and SMB models. This mechanism works similarly to modular switches, where you have a physical chassis with some slots and modules to expand the Switch’s capabilities. Both technologies can provide a management and control panel or a configurable logical switch.

In this case, if a physical switch or a module is lost, redundancy helps the network continue to operate without disruption. In controls that support stacking technology, stacking is done using cables that connect all switches based on a specific topology.

Stacking switches through network cables is based on how the Switch supports the said technology.

• Back-plane Stacking: In the above method, the stacking modules are located behind the Switch and connect the switches through special cables supplied by the switch manufacturer.
• Front-plane stacking: Normally, standard Ethernet ports are used for stacking. Therefore, network experts can use standard Ethernet cables.

As you can see, switch stacking technology is one of the practical and unique features that different brands, like Cisco, support in some of their switches. Switch stacking is a functional feature that improves network bandwidth and throughput. This feature comes in handy for network experts when local network traffic increases. Stacking allows network experts to increase existing network capacity and —manage switches effortlesslylmost. Most Cisco switches support stacking.

What is Cisco StackWise technology?

StackWise is one of Cisco’s innovative application technologies used in the field of deployment of gigabit Ethernet networks to achieve high performance and speed along with better flexibility through the implementation of the failover mechanism. Cisco StackWise is based on a creative approach to consolidate the switches located in a network.

One of the potential and brilliant benefits of the above technology is the ability to support and connect up to 9 switches, increasing the network switching capacity. It allows the switches to share resources combined and provides them as a unified resource to the local network users. In such a situation, you get a virtual connection with a switching capacity of at least 32 Gbps, A high bandwidth that meets the needs of most businesses.

The above technology also provides network experts with another key feature, allowing them to manage the entire stack as a single device with only one IP address.

Switches that are provided to network clients in the form of a single stack are defined and used as a single switch. The performance of the above technology is precisely the same as when you have an array of hard disks integrated based on the Reed architecture, and the server operating system works with them as a single hard disk.

Using a unified management interface, clients can load an image on all switches in a stack by calling a single command. As we mentioned, Cisco StackWise technology has been developed to work with gigabit Ethernet networks so that regulators can define communication channels with high performance, speed, and optimal flexibility through the failover mechanism.

Switches equipped with Cisco StackWise technology, such as the 3750 series switches, fully support scalability. So that you can have a maximum of 252 gigabit Ethernet ports in one stack, it is possible to add or remove buttons without disrupting the network or users.

When new switches are added to the network, these devices receive their configurations from a central component called the Stack Master.

Also, when new equipment is going to replace the old ones, the defined configurations and profiles of the old equipment are read from a configuration file in the stack, and the designs are automatically added to the new equipment.

Also, switches stacked with each other provide link redundancy, which is vital in maintaining network stability, especially when the primary link fails for various reasons.

Of course, Cisco enterprise-class switches such as the 3750 series are not limited to StackWise technology. These switches also support other application technologies, such as cross-stack EtherChannel and UplinkFast. These technologies allow regulators to establish equal cost paths between different stack switches.

These features are designed to maintain dependency on the HSRP feature during router failure. Also, when the master switch fails, another replacement switch is defined as the master switches for the network in less than 2-3 seconds based on the intelligent algorithm that switches work on so that it can take over the responsibilities of the root switch.

What functionality does Cisco StackPower technology add to Cisco switches?

Today’s businesses, where a significant part of their business activities are related to local area networks, have an urgent need for accessibility. One of the critical components that play an essential role in communicating networks is switches. Therefore, network administrators should carefully consider the issue of switch power redundancy when designing networks.

To increase the performance of its switches, Cisco has developed another application technology called StackPower. StackPower can aggregate and manage the power of controls in the form of a shared power supply.

The above mechanism allows switches to use energy optimally. StackPower provides a power aggregation mechanism for all controls to send excess power that the buttons do not need to other devices connected to the Switch.

The combination of these two technologies makes Cisco switches like the 3850 series best support the concept of scalability. An important point to note about the StackPower feature is that network experts must connect switches with the exact specifications and brand to each other to achieve redundancy and load balancing. Typically, Cisco switches support stacking up to 9 buttons to achieve multi-hundred-gigabit switching capacity.

Cisco StackPower, like StackWise, is another innovative Cisco technology that has created a great revolution in this field by aggregating and managing the power of switches in the form of a shared power supply. The above technology helps network administrators more closely monitor power consumption and realize significant savings in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Catalyst switches.

In general, there are two standard solutions to achieve power redundancy for switches: full and partial.

In full redundancy, each Switch is connected to two power supplies so that if one fails, the second one is automatically brought into the circuit. This architecture is called “one-to-one redundancy” and is represented as 1:1. In partial redundancy, an additional power supply is defined for multiple switches to achieve redundancy. This redundancy is shown as N:1. Each of the above architectures has been used.

Typically, network professionals do not use one-to-one redundancy when implementing large enterprise LANs because, in this case, each Switch has its backup power supply, even though it is inactive under normal conditions. N:1 redundancy solutions are suitable for small enterprise LANs because there is a time delay until the power supply comes online.

In general, we must say that Cisco StackPower is an excellent option to achieve the principle of power redundancy of Cisco switches, and by aggregating the power of the controls, it allows additional capacity to be provided to the rules that need more power; The buttons that are supposed to give the required energy for PoE equipment. Pooling power supplies is the best way to distribute force evenly among switches because each Switch can use the power pool optimally.

As a result, in case of power supply failure, it is possible to supply power to the switches whose power supply is damaged.

Network experts who have experience working with StackPower technology know what an important feature this technology provides them so that it precisely manages the energy consumption of switches from the beginning of activation. The above technology creates a power reservoir for the controls in the stack so they can use a backup power source.

For example, suppose we have a stack of switches where each Switch is supposed to supply the energy needed by equipment equipped with PoE technology, each of which is randomly deployed in different parts of the network. In the long run, the traditional and standard methods used in PoE equipment power supply increase companies’ electricity bills because the switches have to provide the energy the devices need full-time even when they do not require electricity.

It is necessary to explain that some switches have an intelligent function in the power supply field through PoE technology. After some time, when a port is not used, they cut off the power flow, but not all of them are like this and sometimes cause particular problems in this field. will be

On the contrary, Cisco StackPower has an automatic and intelligent function to provide the additional power required by the stack switches by defining a shared power pool. Another great advantage of Cisco StackPower technology is that by reducing the number of power supplies needed for each Switch and the number of sockets required for the rack server, it reduces the number of cables in the rack server.

Cisco says about the above technology: “StackPower is a solution developed to minimize energy loss, solve power supply inefficiency in lower workloads, reduce heat reduced rack, and reduce costs reduce cooling equipment.”

Also, Cisco StackPower can use technology.

XPS 2200 uses Cisco Expandable Power System 2200 to deploy more powerful and more significant energy tanks. The above technology based on star topology allows energy sharing between up to nine switches.

In general, we must say that the above technology provides the possibility of optimal management of energy consumption, increasing the performance of power sources in the ideal state, and combining power sources to achieve the best performance. So that in the long run, it reduces the cost of electricity consumption.

In addition, the Cisco Universal POE header provides power for PoE+ and Cisco UPOE for every port in the stack, allowing network experts to define a scalable PoE+ and Cisco UPOE infrastructure.

Using XPS 2200 technology, network experts can ensure the switches’ reliability, availability, and improved performance and define a Redundant Power System (RPS) with a zero-footprint feature. Also, we should not ignore that by reducing the number of required power sources and the number of devices in the rack, the temperature will decrease, and the amount of cabling inside the frame will be reduced.