User`s guide

Section II: Local and Telnet Management

Enhanced Stacking Overview

The enhanced stacking feature can make it easier for you to manage the

AT-8000 Series switches in your network. It offers the following benefits:

❑ You can manage up to 24 switches from one local or remote

management session. This eliminates the need of having to

initiate a separate management session for each switch in your

network.

❑ The switches can share the same IP address. This reduces the

number of IP addresses that you need to assign to your network

devices for remote management.

❑ Remotely managing a new switch in your network is simplified.

You simply connect it to your network. Once connected to the

network, you can begin to manage it immediately from any

workstation in your network.

Guidelines There are a few guidelines to keep in mind when implementing

enhanced stacking for your network:

❑ Each subnet in your network can only have one enhanced stack.

You cannot have multiple enhanced stacks in a subnet.

❑ Each subnet must have at least one master switch.

❑ You must assign the master switch an IP address and subnet mask.

❑ You must change the master switch’s stacking status to Master.

There are three basic steps to implementing this feature on your

network:

1. You must select a switch in your network to function as the master

switch of the stack.

You can select any AT-8000 Series switch to act as the master

switch of an enhanced stack. For networks that consist of more

than one subnet, there must be at least one master switch in each

subnet.

It is recommended that each subnet have two master switches.

That way, should you remove one of the master switches from the

network, such as for maintenance, you all still be able to remotely

manage the switches in the subnet using the other master switch.