Stacking N4032 Switches

Hello,

There is a guide specifically for stacking the N4000 switches that can be found here: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/12/shared-content~data-sheets~en/documents~dell-networking-n4000-series-stacking-guide.pdf   Page 23 discusses adding new members to the stack.

You may want to check this out too, but I think I can probably answer your questions. Once all switches are stacked, you will still need to configure the ports for the newly added members.  You will need to assign VLANs to the ports, as well as any trunks, routing, etc. on those new ports.  Once the stack is configured, it should be considered one giant switch, and that is how it will be perceived on the network to all other devices.  Furthermore, the ports on the newly added switches will all change port numbering.  For example, if a port is port Te1/0/2 before it is stacked, then it will become something like Te3/0/2.  So you should expect to lose some or all of the configuration.  To be safe, just back it up and reconfigure as needed. 

Hope this helps!

-B

Hi!

I have 2 switches N4032 in production without stacking. Now, I want to stack them and I have the following questions:

1- its only 2 switches of 10G ports. Is it recommended to stack it with 2 or 4 ports? I will use the 10G ethernet ports

2- In case of 2 or 4 ports connected as stacks interfaces using only 2 switches, is it the same ring topology or dasiy chain? In other words, connecting 2 or 4 ports, Do already have redundancy between them?

3- If master fails, I understand that slave will became master and the management ip will be accessible, is that correct? What happens if ex master switch becames available? It will became master or slave?

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

Usually the stack is a ring, so yes there is redundancy built in with 2 ports. For 2 or 4 it depends on how much bandwidth you need for your environment. Page 198 https://dell.to/2W29jUn stack master switches on failure or if a manually change is done.