Stacked Switch vs Chassis Switch at the Core

The hierarchical internetworking model divides enterprise networks into three layers: core, distribution and access layer. Core layer is considered as the backbone of the network and incorporates high-end switches and high-speed cables. Network switch at the core has the advantage of backplane switching so as to pass traffic across the core without 1Gbps or even 10Gbps limits and achieve the maximum performance. Currently, there are three types of Ethernet switch solutions: standalone, stacked and chassis network switch. How do you choose to help design or upgrade a network at the core? In this article we will mainly make a comparison between stacked and chassis network switches and guide you to reach appropriate decisions.

Stacked Switch Solution

As a core component of enterprise-grade switches, stacked network switch has been highly favored by many Ethernet users for years. By using stacked switches, we can add ports as we need by simply purchasing another stack switch and adding it to the stack. However, before stacking came along, you had to attach multiple switches together and configure them separately by logging in with a different IP address one by one which was indeed a tedious process. While now, stacked switches share the same IP address and can be configured as one unit which seems like one core switch with a larger amount of ports. Compared with stacked switch solution that fully uses of rack space, chassis switch would require over double the rack space to achieve this access port density.