Background

Buy It Direct, a private communications products distributor and retailer with around 200-500 employees in the UK, wanted to build a network for the new warehouse layout. In order to fully ensure the security of the network connection, the network and components need to be able to provide redundancy. In addition, simplifying the cabling is also a key part of the design based on the existing cabling layout. These are very important considerations in the construction of the enterprise warehouse network.

FS actively responded to the need of our customer, took advantage of its professionalism and considerable experience, and completed the solution delivery on the same day. We helped Buy It Direct choose a core layer switch with high reliability and redundancy function, ensuring uninterrupted business traffic from access layer switches while providing corresponding cabling simplification solutions.

Challenges

In building the network for the new warehouse, Buy It Direct was very careful about the overall network layout. They hoped that the stacking technology would allow them to complete the network based on the existing cabling layout. But there were a few problems they had to face:

Existing cabling restricts the cabling between cabinets, and it was necessary to find simplified cabling solutions, but also ensured redundancy and stability of the network.
After Brexit, the corresponding tariff policy has also changed, and freight has therefore become an important consideration.
The warehouse network needed to be built in the same month, and the office network needed to be built within 3 months, which made the delivery date urgent.

Buy It Direct had a strict and urgent need for the selection of core switch. The FS technical team needed to comprehensively consider the redundant function of the switch and the customer's warehouse cabling system to provide Buy It Direct with a solution in a short period of time and complete the delivery.

Solutions

FS kept abreast of the actual network layout of the Buy It Direct team through video conferencing, and flexibly modified the switch networking scheme. After our technical team understood the specific cabinet location and wiring details, we offered the following two solutions on the same day:

1) Stacking Solution

We suggested our customer add one more pair of connections to the core switches. It was to prevent when the master switch of the stacking units malfunctions, there was not a spare connection for the promoted second master switch. The major purpose of stacking is to add an increased number of ports while quickly increasing the capacity of a network. Stackable switches provide a more economical option with high scalability and flexibility.

Stacking Solution

2) Stacking + MLAG Solution

Configured using MLAG to provide high availability to core switches without sacrificing the number of links due to spanning tree (STP) implications, traffic still works fine using LACP. Control planes are independent and fault domains are isolated, so it provides better control of traffic distribution across links. The core switch chose the S5850 series. It prevented connection loss when the main switch or any uplink fails. The office area used stacking to increase switch ports to ensure network security.

Stacking + MLAG Solution

Regarding the physical combination or segregation between the warehouse network and the office network. Our technical team calculated the core switching capacity details (both stacking solution and stacking & MLAG solution). The switch combination is composed of POE switches and core switches, each layer has 4-5 PoE switches, a total of two layers. The first floor is Stack A; the second floor is Stack B.

stacking solution and stacking & MLAG solution

Customer Benefits

Through the design of stacking and MLAG, redundancy functions are provided to ensure the security and flexibility of network links, and customers can flexibly arrange according to their needs. This solution simplifies wiring to a certain extent, while ensuring the distribution of traffic.

FS completed the solution communication and design with the customer efficiently in a short period, completed the delivery promptly through the warehouse capacity deployed by itself, met the customer's expectations and realized the network construction of the customer's warehouse.

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