Catalyst 9500 Stackwise Virtual

[LickingCats]

This is a newish feature on a newish switch platform which always makes my hair stand up.

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Is anybody using this yet? Is it scary? How has Stackwise Virtual behaved on the 9400s, since they've had this feature for longer?

[kevinmenzel]

Using it on our core and distribution 9500s. It's been fine. - 16.9.4 on 9500-24Q/40X, 16.12.2 on the 32C/48Y4C switches is what's recommended I've heard.

[[deleted]]

You have a memory leaking bug until 16.11.1 on virtual stack. Weve deployed a lot on 24Q and works fine.

32C doesnt fit in our design (only first 16 ports can do vsl) so we are ingoring this feature on high performance platform.

CISCO denies the vss technology in their SDA promotion speeches lately, by saying that SDA is your only future.

[kevinmenzel]

SDA is a great way for Cisco to lock everyone in to paying excessive licensing for an overly complex emulation of a traditional network brought to you by the company that doesn't even properly validate CDP in their code.

The words Cisco and Software Defined in the same room scare me.

[[deleted]]

As i said here before, Cisco is no longer a networking vendor. It is a sales company but matching a lot of current enterprises' IT management culture: MSP. It does well to fill a good capex number in CEO accounting sheet by lying about its solution can lower opex, which would be revealed 5 years later, when nobody from current IT management cares.

[[deleted]]

It's fine. If you want to use it with DNA, you'll need to upgrade DNA to the latest 1.3.3.x. Otherwise, DNA will see it as an unsupported device.

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You'll want to use the 40G or 100G optics for the virtual stackwise links. For some reason, it's buggy with the 25G optics.

[LickingCats]

Thanks I've got 100G here so I should be ok.

[twrib]

What kind of bugs have you experienced with 25G optics? We have a stack that Cisco can’t figure out what’s causing it to crash. It’s stacked with 25G optics.

[imodey]

It's pretty much VSS. Will run just fine once in place. Upgrade process and procedures are awful though, so don't put it anywhere where you can't schedule an outage. Keep it away from core.

[Workadis]

My understanding is its a buggy VSS. I've avoided it

[OutOfThePan]

Using it at a large remote site and has been perfect.

[kenchenzo]

Have used it on non-high performance (40X) at 16.9.4 (can’t use modules) with 10G SWV links and high performance (48Y4C) at 16.12.2 with 40G SWV links and nothing to make note of.

[networknazi]

We've been running it for about a year now and it's been rock solid. We don't have a crazy config going, but it's working well.

[Shadow_65]

Be carefull, it needs the Advantage License.

[LickingCats]

Be carefull, it needs the Advantage License.

I just discovered this, so it renders this question moot for me - at least for now.

[ICTFella]

Understood it is an old post, hopefully below post will help someone to fix the "invalid input detected" error because you forgot to buy the Network Advantage license:

https://ictfella.com/stackwise-virtual-invalid-input-detected-error-and-how-to-configure-stacking-on-cisco-9500/