Cisco StackWise Technology

--> Cisco StackWise technology allows you to combine multiple physical access layer switches into one logical switch.

--> Switches that support StackWise have two special stack ports.

--> Each Switch is connected to below switch and the first switch is connected to the last switch by using stack cables.

--> One switch in StackWise becomes master and it is used for management purposes and other switches are called as members.

--> If Master Switch fails, all the other members try to elect master switch via election.

--> In order to select Master Switch, member switches use following order

i) User Configured Priority.

ii) Hardware/ Software Priority ( IP LAN is having high priority compared to IP Base).

iii) Default Configuration ( Switches which are already having configuration compared to switch with no configuration elected as a master switch).

iv) Uptime ( Switch with the longest uptime).

v) MAC Address ( Switch with lowest MAC Address).

--> Once stack has been created, the configuration ( hostname, IP address, VLAN ) of all the switches is same.

--> No configuration is required on the switch to add it to stack.

--> If one of the cables is broken in the stack then the bandwidth is reduced by 50%.

--> StackWise Technology allows you to combine nine physical switches into one logical switch.

--> It is not possible to combine switches with different IOS versions/software sets into one logical switch.

--> show switch command shows the number of switches is added to StackWise.

i) Ready: indicates switch is fully operational and working properly

ii) Progressing: New switch is trying to communicate with Master Switch.

iii) Provisioned: Switch is having some problem or it is not added to the stack.

--> Show ip int brief shows the interface status in stacking



--> To remove a switch from existing stack, execute the following commands on Master Switch,

Switch(config)# no switch 3 provision

Switch(config)# wr mem