Data Sheet

Tier 1 availability
Virtual Chassis Stacking technology upsurges overall
network availability, providing both better resiliency
in network architectures, and better performance
with advanced load balancing capabilities between
network uplinks
• Up to (8) M4300 switches can be aggregated using a virtual back plane and a single console or web man-
agement interface
• There is no 10G or 40G port pre-congured as Stacking port: all 10G or 40G ports are congured in Ethernet
mode by default
– Port conguration can be changed to Stack mode in Web GUI (System/ Stacking/Advanced/Stack-port
Conguration)
– Or using CLI command << #stack-port unit/slot/port stack >> in Stack Global Conguration section
• Other devices in the network see the stack as a single bridge or a single router
• Within the stack, a switch is elected (or chosen based on priority settings) as the “management unit”
responsible for the stack members’ routing tables
• Another switch is designated (or chosen based on priority settings) as an alternate, backup management unit
• In typical spine and leaf architectures, 10G / 40G “spine” switches are meant to handle management unit and
backup management unit roles
• The Non-Stop Forwarding (NSF) feature enables the stack to secure forwarding end-user trafc when the
management unit fails
• Non-Stop Forwarding is supported for the following events:
– Power failure of the management unit
– Other hardware failure causing the management unit to hang or to reset
– Software failure causing the management unit to hang or to reset
– Failover initiated by the administrator
– Loss of cascade connectivity between the management unit and the backup unit
• As the backup management unit takes over, end-user data streams may lose a few packets, but do not lose
their IP sessions, such as VoIP calls
• Instant failover from management unit to redundant management unit is hitless for world-class resiliency and
availability
• Back to normal production conditions, hitless failback requires a command in CLI or in GUI, for more control
Adding a second PSU to full width models enables redundant 1+1 power protection and contributes to business continuity management
Distributed Link Aggregation, also called Port Channel-
ing or Port Trunking, offers powerful network redun-
dancy and load balancing between stacked members
• Servers and other network devices benet from greater bandwidth capacity with active-active teaming
(LACP—link aggregation control protocol)
• From a system perspective, a LAG (Link Aggregation Group) is treated as a physical port by M4300 stack for
even more simplicity
Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) and Multiple Spanning Tree (MSTP) allow for rapid transitionning of the ports to the Forwarding state and the suppression of Topology
Change Notication
NETGEAR PVSTP implementation (CLI only) follows
the same rules than other vendor’s Per VLAN STP for
strict interoperability
• Including industry-standard PVST+ interoperability
• PVSTP is similar to the MSTP protocol as dened by IEEE 802.1s, the main difference being PVSTP runs one
instance per VLAN
• In other words, each congured VLAN runs an independent instance of PVSTP
• FastUplink feature immediately moves an alternate port with lowest cost to forwarding state when the root
port goes down to reduce recovery time
• FastBackbone feature selects new indirect port when an indirect port fails
NETGEAR PVRSTP implementation (CLI only) follows
the same rules than other vendor’s Per VLAN RSTP for
strict interoperability
• Including industry-standard RPVST+ interoperability
• PVRSTP is similar to the RSTP protocol as dened by IEEE 802.1w, the main difference being PVRSTP runs
one instance per VLAN
• In other words, each congured VLAN runs an independent instance of PVRSTP
• Each PVRSTP instance elects a root bridge independent of the other
• Hence there are as many Root Bridges in the region as there are VLANs congured
• Per VLAN RSTP has in built support for FastUplink and FastBackbone
Intelligent Edge Managed Switches
Data Sheet | M4300 series
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