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Connecting switches together

Network Engineering Asked by The_Bear on September 30, 2021

I have L2 switches which will be daisy chained together (yes I know, daisy chaining isn’t great, but anyway..) The L2 switches will then link to a L3 switch.

Both the L2 and L3 switches have x4 10GbE SFP+ ports. Would I be able to daisy chain the L2 switches together using the SFP+ port with an Ethernet cable?

Also I was going to link the L2 switches to the L3 switches via Fiber using the SFP+ ports. However in some cases, that maxes out the L3 switch, and I need at least 8 SFP+ on the L3 switch, so is this just a case of adding extra SFP+ modules to the L3 switch?

I also have two different servers, one which have 10Gbe port and one with 10Gb port, would I be able to connect these to the L3 SFP+ via fiber?

2 Answers

I have L2 switches which will be daisy chained together (yes I know, daisy chaining isn't great, but anyway..) The L2 switches will then link to a L3 switch.

Both the L2 and L3 switches have x4 10GbE SFP+ ports.

Something like this?

+------+            +------+            +------+
|  L2  |SFP+----SFP+|  L2  |SFP+----SFP+|  L3  |SFP+-----Server with SFP+
+------+            +------+            |      |SFP+-----Server with SFP+
                                        |      |SFP+
                                        +------+

Would I be able to daisy chain the L2 switches together using the SFP+ port with an Ethernet cable?

If the switches are ethernet switches, then the only cables you can use are ethernet cables. Remember that ethernet runs on a variety of media, including UTP and fiber optic cable, so any cable used for ethernet is an ethernet cable.

Also I was going to link the L2 switches to the L3 switches via Fiber using the SFP+ ports. However in some cases, that maxes out the L3 switch, and I need at least 8 SFP+ on the L3 switch, so is this just a case of adding extra SFP+ modules to the L3 switch?

Based on your description, I do not see the need for eight SFP+ interfaces in the layer-3 switch. Whether or not you can add SFP+ interfaces to the switch depends on the switch model and if it has slots for more SFP+ interfaces.

Layer-3 switches are first layer-2 switches, but also have an internal routing module. Other than that, the switches are switches, and you can use the SFP+ as switch interfaces in either type.

I also have two different servers, one which have 10Gbe port and one with 10Gb port, would I be able to connect these to the L3 SFP+ via fiber?

That depends on the server hardware, which is off-topic here, but if the server NICs have slots for SFP+ interfaces, then there should be no problem.

Correct answer by Ron Maupin on September 30, 2021

If your server network adapter are equipped with sfp modules mean you can connect the way your described. If your servers are older model and not support 10Gb sfp port mean your cannot able to connect fiber . Then you need to use Ethernet cat6 cable connecting switch and server in case if your server is not compatible with sfp port.. If your server is feasible to user converter mean you can use sfp port to connect fiber

Answered by Sagar Uragonda on September 30, 2021

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