Stacking Network Switches

Pulserider

Pulserider

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I'm using Netgear GS724TS (Stackable) switch. Will the performance increase if I stack this switch with another Netgear GS724TS switch and split the load on them?
 
What kind of performance are you talking about ?

Stacking them increases capacity more than performance.
 
I doubt you will notice any kind of gains in doing this.
Stacking will only give you a performance increase for traffic between the two switches, as technically the stacking ports should be faster than normal ports used to daisy chain two switches.
 
I will hope to share the processing on the switches. There is lots of CCTV streaming on this one switch and I would hope if I add another switch stacking it to share the load? Is this not the way of increasing the performance?
 
Stacking Switches isnt aimed at load balancing the main goal of stacking switches is redundancy so that if you lose a switch you only drop a small section of coms.

It would work with sharing the load if you spread the IP cameras equally on the stacked switches. Stacking would share backplane bandwidth not memory or CPU load.

Regards
Daniel Cisco Swart
 
andreh said:
I will hope to share the processing on the switches. There is lots of CCTV streaming on this one switch and I would hope if I add another switch stacking it to share the load? Is this not the way of increasing the performance?
Click to expand...

IMO by increasing the capacity you should be able to see a performance boost
 
eCliPSe said:
Stacking Switches isnt aimed at load balancing the main goal of stacking switches is redundancy so that if you lose a switch you only drop a small section of coms.

It would work with sharing the load if you spread the IP cameras equally on the stacked switches. Stacking would share backplane bandwidth not memory or CPU load.

Regards
Daniel Cisco Swart
Click to expand...

Your middle name is Cisco? Wow, your parents must have hated you :p
 
eCliPSe said:
Stacking Switches isnt aimed at load balancing the main goal of stacking switches is redundancy so that if you lose a switch you only drop a small section of coms.

It would work with sharing the load if you spread the IP cameras equally on the stacked switches. Stacking would share backplane bandwidth not memory or CPU load.

Regards
Daniel Cisco Swart
Click to expand...

So that means that if I spread the IP cameras on the two switches I will free the one switch processing power a bit as the other switch stacked will process then the other load that is put on it?
 
The load I believe is quite high as it takes slow to access the switch via the web browser aswell.
 
Hi Andreh,

How many cameras are you trying to connect up over both switches?

Correct me if I am wrong here but according to my calculations, a 1 megapixel IP cam @ 25 FPS will consume about 5.5Mbps of data during streaming while a 2 megapixel around 9Mbps. Even if you use all your ports on a single switch you should not be able to saturate the 1Gb uplink?

Since it's a managed switch I would recommend that you setup the cameras and login to the web gui, see if there is a screen that allows you to monitor the data throughput of your uplink port during the streaming.
 
andreh said:
So that means that if I spread the IP cameras on the two switches I will free the one switch processing power a bit as the other switch stacked will process then the other load that is put on it?
Click to expand...

This also depends on how many cameras you are running.... lets say you have 36 cameras and 3 stacked switch with 24 ports each.

I will allocate the first 12 ports on each of the 3 switches just for ip cameras.

If you take and add the 36 cameras on two switches 18 ports on each you can clear up your 3 switch and make it the stack master. So that you can manage your stack.... but tbh you will be wasting a whole switch.

@AcidRazor Yeah man Next year i will try for My CCIE to go with my other 10 Cisco certifications :D
 
Having 14 3MP IP cameras running at 10FPS. Maybe I must go with rather a stronger switch, but not that cost a arm or a leg. Maybe looking at the Netgear GSM7224-200?
 
Backplane

How does the old story go about switches -- collision domains and broadcast domains ????
VLANS ????
The only way to increase the "performance" of a single switch is to have a bigger //faster backplane -- ie a new uprated switch. ( Gigabit ports )
Assuming it is the switch -- and not all the other things that can throttle throughput.
The performance of a network is like a well tuned Ferrari -- a sum of ALL it's parts.
 
b@nD said:
How does the old story go about switches -- collision domains and broadcast domains ????
VLANS ????The only way to increase the "performance" of a single switch is to have a bigger //faster backplane -- ie a new uprated switch. ( Gigabit ports )
Assuming it is the switch -- and not all the other things that can throttle throughput.
The performance of a network is like a well tuned Ferrari -- a sum of ALL it's parts.
Click to expand...

Im not sure what your point is here?
Its a switch, there should be no collissions at all. As for broadcast domains, once the switch is up and running and its populated its CAM table there shouldnt really be any broadcasts flooding the ports.
 
syntax said:
Im not sure what your point is here?
Its a switch, there should be no collissions at all. As for broadcast domains, once the switch is up and running and its populated its CAM table there shouldnt really be any broadcasts flooding the ports.
Click to expand...

Also confused. Each port on a switch is essentially in it's own collision domain. Maybe he's confusing switches with hubs.
 
Have a Kit-Kat

ponder said:
Also confused.
Each port on a switch is essentially in it's own collision domain.
Maybe he's confusing switches with hubs.
Click to expand...
NO no
Being facetious
there shouldnt really be any broadcasts flooding the ports.
Click to expand...
Depends

A special definition exists for the IP broadcast address 255.255.255.255. It is the broadcast address of the zero network or 0.0.0.0, which in Internet Protocol standards stands for this network, i.e. the local network. Transmission to this address is limited by definition, in that it is never forwarded by the routers connecting the local network to other networks.
Broadcast is possible also on the underlying Data Link Layer in Ethernet networks. Frames are addressed to reach every computer on a given LAN segment if they are addressed to MAC address FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. Ethernet frames that contain IP broadcast packages are usually sent to this address.
Ethernet broadcasts are used by Address Resolution Protocol to translate IP addresses to MAC addresses.

DHCP ( and others -- BOOTP ) CAN be transmitted by a router across a segment ( not talking about "hacking" )

VLAN -- Segmenting the network

Forget about the 101 and just comment on the backplane thing :)
 
b@nD said:
NO no
Being facetious

Depends

A special definition exists for the IP broadcast address 255.255.255.255. It is the broadcast address of the zero network or 0.0.0.0, which in Internet Protocol standards stands for this network, i.e. the local network. Transmission to this address is limited by definition, in that it is never forwarded by the routers connecting the local network to other networks.
Broadcast is possible also on the underlying Data Link Layer in Ethernet networks. Frames are addressed to reach every computer on a given LAN segment if they are addressed to MAC address FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF. Ethernet frames that contain IP broadcast packages are usually sent to this address.
Ethernet broadcasts are used by Address Resolution Protocol to translate IP addresses to MAC addresses.

DHCP ( and others -- BOOTP ) CAN be transmitted by a router across a segment ( not talking about "hacking" )

VLAN -- Segmenting the network

Forget about the 101 and just comment on the backplane thing :)
Click to expand...

Im still confused, you are talking about broadcasts, but they will only (not technically true, but anyways) happen through a switch, when the switch doesnt have an appropriate entry in its CAM table.
So, connecting a new camera, the first time someone tries to ARP for the new device, there will be a broadcast, after that, traffic is limited to the ports that are required for the communication because the switch knows which MAC lives on which port.

anyways, this is a bit off topic
 
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