Question : Problem: Cisco 3550 SMI PWR Switch

Whats is the best way to uplink a Cisco 3550 SMI PWR Switch?
What is the purpose of GBIC?
One of my client bought 5 units of the above switch and five units of 1000 Base T GBIC..now they have ordered five more... what could be the reason?
Since it's a POWER Switch does that mean the IP phones won;t be needing any power cord? (since it draws power from the switch?) DO we have to consider about the power supply for the Switches?

Answer : Problem: Cisco 3550 SMI PWR Switch

The PWR means the switch will power phones, or wireless access points over the Ethernet connections if they support that feature. The power supply for this is in the switch, so nothing else is needed to take advantage of this feature other than phones, or access points that can make use of it.

As for stacking, that’s what the GBIC’s are for, they are for gigabit fiber connection between the switches. I suspect after they had everything in hand they realized that it wasn’t going to work with just 5 since you daisy change the switches together when you stack them through the GBIC’s, and at the minimum for 5 switches you need eight of them. One for each of the ends, and two for the three in the middle, but the best way is to make a loop, which is probably the reason they ordered an additional five GBIC’s. That way if something happens to one of the switches, it won’t break the chain and split the network in half since every switch will have two paths between them.