Hi,
my point of view:
what is the benefit of Stacking/VSS/IRF?
I see following reasons:
- only one IP address to manage = is it real benefit?
- only one configuration = is it real benefit? if I do mistake i do it on whole system = no chance that the other half will save me.
- only one system for link aggregation = MLAG does the job for me
I see following disadvantages:
- only one system for firmware upgrade = all units must have the same firmware = you can not run two different codes. Hit less firmware upgrade is not available from any version to any version = in reality upgrade of the "one system" means reboot very often.
- the Stacking/VSS/IRF feature itself is SPoF = if the process dies you are in trouble. I have seen so many complains from early adopters of buggy implementations in the past on VSS technology
My summary:
With MLAG and VRRP you have fully redundant network. With network management you can orchestrate more devices with one click = this is even better than one system by CLI
regards
Zdenek
Regards
Zdeněk Pala