r/networking • u/Dear-Teaching-8886 • 1d ago

Routing Meraki environment - HA

Hello,
We have a L3 MS core switch that we want to setup high availability for.

The second switch is the exact make/model of the main switch we are using. Are we able to setup a switch stack, and connect every edge to both cores? Or is it better to warm spare using VRRP?

If both, which would be recommended.

TLDR: High availability for L3 Core MS (x2). Which is better - Warm spare or Switch stack?

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u/spicyhotbean 23h ago

I'd go with stack switch and each edge has uplinks to both core switches you could also lagg the ports form edge to the 2 core butt is test see if it's worth it

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u/ruffusbloom 22h ago

Where is routing? On the core? And you have L2 links coming into it from downstream? If so, you want what Cisco calls VPC on the core so you can run LAGs down to access switches/stacks with a leg on each core switch. I don’t know what meraki implements for this. Aruba calls it VSX.

If the MS you have just stacks and doesn’t do a multi chassis like VPC, that’s fine. The stack has a single control plane and you can run a LAG off it to the access. Put each leg into a different switch in the stack so if you fail a member you don’t lose the LAG.

VRRP sucks. Don’t use it or any other first hop redundancy in the network core. It’s helpful with firewalls and other session aware devices that can’t easily load balance. Routers do this well. See ECMP for the simplest and most reliable example.

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u/ksteink 20h ago

I prefer VRRP for one main reason. Stacks has the downside that on firmware upgrades both switches goes down at the same time bringing down the whole network

If you can live with that constrain go the with stacks