Rebuilding an HP switch stack

Hi guys... i have to add a switch to one of our remote locations. currently they have 2 switch stacks which i do not think are set up correctly. all switches are physically in the same rack. there are 4 switches, the "core" is an unmanaged 100mb 3Com which i am replacing. however the other 3 are split up into 2 stacks with one being a member in one stack and the other stack with no members. These are connected PHYSICALLY with GigT ports. I would like to rebuild this, having 1 commander and 3 members. we are not using vlans currently. My question, do these switches need to be connected physically by trunks or should i wipe that out and daisy chain them by configuring etherchannel up/down ports? the documentation from HP says the switches dont need to be physically connected to be part of the same stack, but im not comfortable with that. (using auto grab on the commander and auto join on the members)

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DigitalZeroOne

I'm not trying to be funny, but why not ask your co-workers?

tdean

DigitalZeroOne wrote: »

I'm not trying to be funny, but why not ask your co-workers?

If i had some i would. Im assuming you mean "IT staff" and not the lady at the front desk.

EDIT: The reason i ask some of these questions here, which might seem ridiculous to many of you, is because i work alone, supporting 3 sites with no testing environment and no extra equipment. i do my research ahead of time, but over here there is absolutely no room for error because everything is in production and we cant have any down time.

DigitalZeroOne

tdean wrote: »

If i had some i would. Im assuming you mean "IT staff" and not the lady at the front desk.

EDIT: The reason i ask some of these questions here, which might seem ridiculous to many of you, is because i work alone, supporting 3 sites with no testing environment and no extra equipment. i do my research ahead of time, but over here there is absolutely no room for error because everything is in production and we cant have any down time.

Wow, I'm sure you already know this, but that sucks. I really don't know what to tell you, other than good luck, and I hope you get the correct answer. You may want to walk by the mangers desk, or whomever it would be and just say aloud - "Wow, some test equipment would sure help me do my job better and save the company money".

tdean

DigitalZeroOne wrote: »

Wow, I'm sure you already know this, but that sucks. I really don't know what to tell you, other than good luck, and I hope you get the correct answer. You may want to walk by the mangers desk, or whomever it would be and just say aloud - "Wow, some test equipment would sure help me do my job better and save the company money".

lol.... its ok. things go pretty slow because of the lack of, well, everything... and no one gets on my case. The guys here have been unbelievable with helping me do everything from reconfigure the vlans, to setting up our EVPL to my ASA failover projects. All done with out any downtime because of the peeps here at TE.

DevilWAH

Seriouly I use to be in this position, do a search on ebay and see if you can put together a bit of a training lab for a few £100 quid. then take the ready made list to you boss and explain how much it would help in your job.

The worst they can say is no. and you might just end up with some equipment to play with.

tdean

DevilWAH wrote: »

Seriouly I use to be in this position, do a search on ebay and see if you can put together a bit of a training lab for a few £100 quid. then take the ready made list to you boss and explain how much it would help in your job.

The worst they can say is no. and you might just end up with some equipment to play with.

This is a good call.. i've saved them enough money, time to start making my life easier. perhaps cisco kits.

DevilWAH

I started with a few 3640's a 2905 terminal server and for less than £150 delivered, "borrowed an old 3550 switch and all good to go. Once I was starting to demo things to management on it, they were happy to add bits over time. When I left it was a stack of 3750's, 3550's, 3 X 3640's, 2 X 2610 and a 1841 router.

Start small and build up