Stacking Procurve Switches (nested)

[Simon Whiting]

G'day,

We have five HP 4108gl switches as our set of core switches. Currently we have them in a cascaded arrangement, with a two port trunk per cascade connection, eg

SW-1 to SW-2 (2 port trunk)
SW-2 to SW-3 (2 port trunk)
SW-3 to SW-4 (2 port trunk)
SW-4 to SW-5 (2 port trunk)

This configuration has served us extremely well except on the rare occasion when one of the middle switches has failed, resulting in a split network.

Due to the length of the stacking port cables (1/2 metre) it is impossible for us to connect SW-1 to SW-5 in a cascade loop. We propose to break the trunked stacking ports and configure the switches in a staggered switch format, ie

SW-1 to SW-2 and to SW-3
SW-2 to SW-3 and to SW-4
SW-3 to SW-4 and to SW-5
SW-4 to SW-5

Is this configuration likely to cause any problems?

All suggestions/recommendations greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Simon Whiting.

[Jeff Brownell]

Seems sound as long as you have a stp/rstp setup to block redundant links. But it is really hard to say since we dont know what your enviromnet entails.

Here is procurves guide to stp/rstp (amongst alot of other things) on the 4100:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/networking/software/59908853-1004-Adv-Trff-Mgmt.pdf

Here is procurves guide to port trunking (amongst alot of other things) on the 4100:
ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/networking/software/59906023-1004-Management-Guide.pdf