Planning an EX8200 Virtual Chassis
An EX8200 Virtual Chassis is formed by connecting XRE200 External Routing Engines to EX8200 switches.
Before installing an EX8200 Virtual Chassis, you must consider the following factors:
The number of devices in the Virtual Chassis and location—You can interconnect up to eight EX8200 switches and up to two XRE200 External Routing Engines to form an EX8200 Virtual Chassis. You can stack the switches and external Routing Engines in a single rack or install them in multiple racks. For information on the size and strength of racks for the switches or external Routing Engines, see Rack Requirements. See Chassis Physical Specifications of an EX8208 Switch, Chassis Physical Specifications of an EX8216 Switch, and Chassis Physical Specifications for an XRE200 External Routing Engine for the dimensions and weights of the switches or external Routing Engines.
Cabling requirements for the Virtual Chassis—You can interconnect the EX8200 switches in a Virtual Chassis configuration through Virtual Chassis ports (VCPs) using a Category 5 Ethernet cable with RJ-45 connections. The maximum supported cable length is 328 feet (100 meters).
You can extend external Routing Engine-to-external Routing Engine connections using the small form-factor pluggable (SFP) ports on the 1000BASE-X Virtual Chassis Control Interface (VCCI) modules. The maximum supported cable length is 43.5 miles (70 km).
You can also extend external Routing Engine-to-EX8200 switch connections using the SFP ports on the 1000BASE-X VCCI modules with the use of an intermediary switch. An intermediary switch is required because the MGMT port on the internal Routing Engine of an EX8200 switch does not support SFP connections. See Understanding Long-Distance Virtual Chassis Port Configuration for an EX8200 Virtual Chassis.
Power requirements—You must plan the installation site to meet the power requirements of the EX8200 switches and external Routing Engines in the EX8200 Virtual Chassis. See AC Power Specifications for XRE200 External Routing Engines for AC power supply information or DC Power Specifications for an XRE200 External Routing Engine for DC power supply information. See Calculating Power Requirements for an EX8208 Switch or Calculating Power Requirements for an EX8216 Switch for information on EX8200 switch power requirements.
