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Dell EMC Technical White Paper

4 Conclusion

Both VLT and stacking technologies create a virtual switch where several switches are combined into one. This

is not possible using standalone switches.

Even though both these technologies give us similar capabilities, stacked switches act as a single switch from

both data plane and control plane, so if switches need to be updated, all the switches need to be rebooted, and

the network fails. VLT offers one data plane but individual control planes, and thus each switch can be managed

and upgraded separately without full network downtime. Some of the important points to remember when

comparing VLT and Stacking are captured in the following table:

Advantages

Disadvantages

VLT

10, 9

• Allows the lifecycle management

without any disruption to live traffic.

• Provides the necessary link and

device redundancy needed by any

upstream or downstream

connectivity.

• Provides layer 2 and layer 3

connectivity independent of distance.

• VLT is limited to 2 peers.

Stacking

• Accommodates multiple switches

depending upon the switch series.

• The single logical chassis allows for

easier maintenance as the stack is

managed as one logical unit.

• Stack switches act as a single

switch, so if a switch needs to be

updated all the switches in the

stack need to be rebooted.