NetworkGalaxy - by Prashant Sahu

Whenever there is redundancy in the network, there are chances of formation of loops. When loops are at layer 3, TTL value in the packet header saves the packet from looping endlessly. Similarly, to avoid loops at layer 2, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) comes into play. STP exchanges BPDU messages with other switches to detect loops, and then removes the loop by shutting down selected bridge interfaces. This algorithm guarantees that there is only one active path between two network devices. A layer 2 network with redundancy without STP can cause following issues: Broadcast Storm Unstable mac-address table in a switch Duplicate frames arriving at host STP Operation

A stackable switch is a network switch that is fully functional operating standalone but which can also be set up to operate together with one or more other network switches, with this group of switches showing the characteristics of a single switch but having the port capacity of the sum of the combined switches. Following are some of the benefits of stacked switches. 1. Simplified Network Management Multiple physical switches in a stack appear as a single logical switch. This eases management overhead because there are fewer devices in the network to manage. A single IP address is used to manage the logical switch. All manageable entities (for example, Ethernet interfaces and VLANs) on all physical switches can be configured and managed from the logical switch. The logical switch will appear as a single entity in the network. In a Layer 2 network, the logical switch will appear as a single spanning-tree entity.