Did I connect these switches according to best practices?
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Is there an article or blog that I can read up on concerning best practices when connecting routers/switches/etc together? Maybe read what Cisco recommends?
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@fredtx said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
Maybe read what Cisco recommends?
Haha, I would never trust stuff from Cisco. My experience with their engineers has been less than competent.
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Here's a good way to know if Cisco's advice can be trusted. Ask them if they would recommend Cisco equipment. They always say "yes", but the answer should nearly always be "no".
Half joking, but not really.
In general, though, remember IT advice should not come from vendors. Vendors are not in IT, nor do they do IT, nor are they your advisors. Their goals are very different from your goals. Not that everything that they say is wrong or bad, but it is not at all from the correct perspective. Cisco, and all other vendors, produce all documentation with one goal: sales. You have the opposite goal: minimize purchasing.
Great example: Microsoft always recommends AD (almost always) and two domain controllers. But for the majority of businesses, AD is a bad idea and for the majority of those with AD, only a single controller is best. Microsoft pretty consistently gives totally backwards advice because actual IT advice would minimize licensing to them and limit "lock in".
Now, in this example, there's nothing to ask Cisco. There's only a question of which of these essentially identical switches goes where. There's only one plausible configuration. So I'm not sure what question is even being asked, really.
One switch has to be the core, the others should hang off of it and not be daisy chained. Other than that incredibly basic bit of guidance, what else is there to ask? How else could you plug it in? Basically there is one right way, and one wrong way and nothing else. And the wrong way is pretty obviously wrong.
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@scottalanmiller said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
One switch has to be the core, the others should hang off of it and not be daisy chained.
Like this.
On the bottoms, cable modem.
Next up is the ER4. Singe Ethernet in from modem and single fiber up to the EdgeSwitch 12 Fiber, in this scenario, this is the core switch.From EdgeSwitch 12 Fiber, all other switches are directly connected except 1 that I was unable to get fiber to.
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Whether your interconnect is fiber or copper is not relevant to the discussion.
You have 1 switch that all other switches should be plugged in to. Period.
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@fredtx said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
I connected as much as I could to the meraki switch, starting with the servers.
This is where you went south. Servers and printers are not PoE. You are wasting a ton of ports. Likely your backup NAS also.
You should have your Meraki router plugged in to the EdgeSwitch.
Then you should have all your servers and printers and non-PoE devices plugged in to the EdgeSwitch also. Leving enough ports open only for your other switches.
1 port should go from the EdgeSwitch to the Adtran swithc since you said:
@fredtx said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
an Adtran switch, which where most of their devices plugged into
At this point you should likely not need the Meraki.
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@jaredbusch said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
all other switches are directly connected except 1 that I was unable to get fiber to.
I did splurge and use 2 ports to connect back to that other switch Because that other switch is an EdgeSwitch 24 Lite with the servers and NAS connected.
Most of that heavy traffic is local to the switch. but I at least have multiple links (in a LAG) in case something happens to one of the connections. If I had been able to have had fiber ran, I also would have had 2 run to the server rack.
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@jaredbusch Good stuff
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@scottalanmiller I understand what you mean by not getting advice from vendors. However, maybe there's some "good" information that would go into details concerning best practices when connected switches together. For instance, I've seen your posts where you said you learned some good concepts while studying for the mcsa back in the 90's.
I think I've grasped the concept here though. You have a core switch, where you plug in your other switches, which those switches will have hosts connected together. Jared put a good example of what good practices should look like. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? LOL
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The edgerouter would sit where it says Internet.
Backbone switch is also called core switch.
Edge switch is also called access switch. That's where you would have PoE.
What you did was kind of like daisy chaining switches, which is in general a bad idea. But wouldn't really matter in a very small network.
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@fredtx said in Did I connect these switches according to best practices?:
For instance, I've seen your posts where you said you learned some good concepts while studying for the
mcsaMCSE back in the 90's.That's true. But mostly I learned about the parts that weren't related to them, and mostly from third party sourced like Ed Tittle. Microsoft's own materials weren't bad, but not on par with good educators.
