How many ports are enough for Distribution Layer Switch?

[burakheyjobs]

Hello

I am confused between ports count. For distribution layer switches, switching capacity is really important but do ports count matter also? What is the difference between 24 or 48 ports distribution switches? I am thinking to buy FortiSwitch 148F 48 ports for distribution switch. Do you recommend 24 ports with same or near switching capacity like Fortiswitch 124F 24 ports?


Thank you for every information :)

[akristof]

Hello,

Thank you for question. I think this depends on your own network design or future design. You need to consider how many ports you will use right away (how many access switches you will connect), will you use LACP and how many ports you want to save for future scalability, etc.

[burakheyjobs]

Thank you for your answer. I will use two distr. switches and 6-7 access switches.

one Distribu. switch will use 4 SFP ports to connect other distr switch and one fortigate.

I will use MC-LAG between fortigate and dist. switches
access switches will connect to each distr. switches using one port (or two) :)

[warshad]

Hi,

Depends on your network design. To choose the right distribution switch, there are several factors to consider, such as port type, port density and port speed, layer 3 function, forwarding rate, redundancy, link aggregation, security policy, QoS capacity etc,.

[Fortibeast_Andy]

Hi,

read the switch features first. not every switch has all the features you might need in a core/distribution switch. I agree with the answers beforehand, the port density is an aspect, but so is the required functionality. and the 1xx series is not always the best choice. on the access side, however, they can be used very well. we normally use the 1024E or the 1048E as core/dist in smaller environments. for larger environments, the 3032E switches

As far as I can gather from the document, it is not possible with the 1xxF MCLAG-ICL. Which is a must with redundant core/dist switches

Regards,

Andy

FortiSwitch-Compatible Transceivers (fortinetweb.s3.amazonaws.com)