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We have a virtual chassis composed of four EX-3300 48-port switches: One master, one backup, and two linecard, all located in the same LAN closet. All of the switches have uplinks to a Palo Alto PA-500 network appliance. There are fourteen VLANs defined in this VC.

We are in a situation where we need to extend this network to a satellite facility. The fiber run is in place, and all I need now is guidance on how to extend our network presence from our LAN closet to this facility a few miles down the road.

My understanding, from the documentation, is that EX3300 switches CANNOT run in a mixed virtual chassis, which presents a problem. We would like to do the following:

  1. Connect the current VC to an EX2200-24P switch, located at the satellite facility.

  2. Connect an EX2300-C-12P to the EX2200 above, so that we can extend the network to a neighboring outbuilding.

All of the traffic will pass through the Palo Alto PA-500 layer 3 device.

If I cannot add these switches to the existing VC and run in mixed mode, what are my options? These switches need to be able to see all of the resources the VC manages.

Chris
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1 Answers1

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What you'll want is a run of single-mode fiber. You can add the appropriate SFP modules for 1000BASE-LX or 10GBASE-LR to your switches. You can't stack an EX2200 with the EX3300s but you can set up a switched link.

Connecting the fiber interfaces is no different than connecting the usual copper cables. You configure all the VLANs on each side that should cross the fiber, aggregate multiple ports, ...

VLANs have to be set up exactly in the same way on both sides. One VLAN may remain untagged, all other VLANs need to be tagged.

Zac67
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  • Perfect. So, if I'm reading this correctly, if I want to use, for example, my existing VLANs tagged 1, 2, and 3 that are managed in the VC, I would also need to create VLANs tagged 1, 2, and 3 on my remote switch? The fiber run is already in place, and I plan to run it between the two switches as a trunk. – Chris Mar 24 '18 at 21:33
  • Yes, exactly. I hope the fiber is SMF, MMF isn't much use for this range... – Zac67 Mar 24 '18 at 21:38
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    This configuration is working at our remote location. Greatly appreciate the assist! – Chris Mar 26 '18 at 15:33
  • -- Thumbs up! -- – Zac67 Mar 26 '18 at 17:05