Switch->Switch bandwidth?

[SyK]

If I have 2 switches, or hubs, I know you can connect them together, but can you connect more than one port on each, to stop the connection between them becoming a bottleneck?

[SyK]

Hmm. Sorry, maybe this should be in the newbie section, now that I actually look at it...
But it is a bit specific, I guess

[ProphecyKnthrak]

U cam to the rite section.. its a network question. To answer your question... YES u can. Depending on the Hub or Switch u are using u can connect them without any problems.

But.... if u want to connect different types of hubs or switchs to one another... sometimes u need special uplink modoues.

[Net_Fish]

Plugging any 2 switches or hubs together usualy results in a loop in the network, this is a bad thing(tm)

there are switches that use Spanning Tree Protocol that is designed for this very task, the Spanning Tree Protocol is able to see loops and organise data apropriatly, also look for switchs that can do trunking, my old college has 2 3com super stack III switches that connect via the matrix connecter (backplane interconnect), and also use 200meg trunked to the Cisco switch in the CADD lab, both switches are required to understand Spanning Tree Protocol / Trunking for this to work, also the primary file server has a 200mbit Trunked connection into the 3coms, to give you a rough estimate each switch costs around $3500.

[ProphecyKnthrak]

Well.. i've done it....... it worked.

I've connected a 100 MB switch and a Fibre Optic switch together. Worked prefectly... how u explain that? Played games and transfered large amourts of data through them.

I love the FibreOptic switch.

@ flip: Your post had more spelling mistakes and even didn't make sence. Go to an english school first. If u were referring to my abrv. then i did those on purpose. I don't have time and couldn't be bothered to type the whole word. The rest of the ppl knew what i was talking about.

[Net_Fish]

well for a start if the fibre switch doesnt have Trunking abilities i would be worried, and are you trunking in this case or is it a single link ?

[ProphecyKnthrak]

OH... i can't even remember u know. I did it a few months ago.

Don't judge me on my memory but i THINK it was on a single.... not sure tho.

[SyK]

So, it won't work? What I was after, is I've got a Netgear RT314 (Router + 4-port 10/100), and need more ports. And I was worried that if I have 3 pcs on that, one port connected to another switch/hub, then 4-5 pcs on the second switch, then the connection between the 2 would give a bottleneck if too many on the second are trying to get at the first, etc.

But, I guess adsl is going to be more of a bottleneck anyway, so best way would be to connect a new switch on one port, and connect all the pcs to the new switch?

[Net_Fish]

gawd, if thats all your after just go the uplink, the only way your going to saturate that 100meg uplink is if you have 8 machines on one segment ftping off a server in the other segment, then you 'might' saturate, 10Mbit/sec is a a fair chunk of bandwidth, 24 clients will hang off a 100Mbit port at a 100 player lan quite nicely

[SyK]

Hahahah. OK, brilliant, thanks. I'll give it a shot then, see how it goes.

[Fireblade]

Using HP switches you can create a switch mesh which provides extra speed, fault tolerance and if you have 3 or more in the mesh, it also finds the fastest path form one to another depending on how busy the link is. I think Cisco also offer something similar though they call it trunking. Cisco and HP use different terms for the same process in a few different situations.

[Simon]

If all you want to do is to introduce another hub to add ports , there are 2 easy ways of doing this .

You can use the uplink port (if you have 1) , if you don't you can use a crossover cable , just go from 1 port on the router to a port on the hub , just like connecting 2 PC's .

[Net_Fish]

Chris

Sorry to sound vauge here, I have a basic understanding of how STP works, but am by no means an expert. The answer to your first question would be this. from my understanding if both switches see a recursive loop they will shutdown a port and then later if the active line is cut it will activate port B. this being said, some of the higher end switches are able to see the link auto maticly and negotiate a STP link. so in summary it depends on the switches

the second question. If you have something like
core = trunked link => Big-Switch -- non trunked --> some generic $500 switches

then each of the leaf switches will send data to big-switch, big-switch then sends data to the core anyway it can, ie the leaf switches dont need to understand STP they just need to deliver the data to the next upstream hop.

hope this helps somewhat, again sorry im not a complete guru here

[Fireblade]

I ripped this straight from the HP Procurve manual as it explains it better than I could.

<snip>
How STP Operates
The switch automatically senses port identity and type, and automatically defines port cost and priority for each type. The console interface allows you to adjust the Cost and Priority for each port, as well as the Mode for each port and the global STP parameter values for the switch.
While allowing only one active path through a network at any time, STP retains any redundant physical path to serve as a backup (blocked) path in case the existing active path fails. Thus, if an active path fails, STP automatically activates (unblocks) an available backup to serve as the new active path for as long as the original active path is down.
<snip>

So, Chris, the most important features of STP are that it can identify loops, disable them, then bring them back up should one fail. Also the cost and prioity thing. The trunking/meshing is setup manually though a telnet session. I'd post my Visio drawings of our network here, but i'm not sure if the big wigs in the company would appreciate it. We have the whole lot going, STP, VLANs, Trunking, Meshing. It's much easier to understand in diagram form. You can probably find example diagrams on the web elsewhere. As far as I know OSPF and STP are similar although OSPF is simply shortest path, whereas STP allows you to assign a cost to the path so that you have control over the packets, rather than the switch doing this. This allows you to effectively assign more bandwidth to those who need it, or think they need it (like the Managing Director). I'm not sure if OSPF supports redundancy like STP does either, so I can't help you out on that one. Don't take this as gospel, as i'm just giving you information based on experience. Network topolgies become a very complex topic. I've seen people get in big arguments about this stuff and how it should implemented. The facts are, that there is no "right" way. There are many different ways and you need to find the best way for your particular network. I've never seen 2 large networks that are configured the same way.