The amount of calculated bandwidth for a network is going to vary from network to network. If you have the available ports 4 connections is perfectly fine. You can always expand or trim the connections later. The stack is going to act as one logical device, so a LAG/portchannel will be required. Page 945 of the user guide.  [URL] When it comes to routing between the VLANs. Typically only the core switch is going to have an IP address for all of the VLANs. The other switches will have 1 IP address for management. Your clients will have an IP address for the subnet of the VLAN they are in. And have the gateway set to the IP address assigned to the VLAN on the core switch, which is setup for routing.  For the port settings try this out. interface port-channel 1 description "Link - Stack1" switchport mode general switchport general pvid 11 switchport general allowed vlan add 2,5,23 tagged switchport general allowed vlan add 11 untagged switchport general allowed vlan remove 1 interface port-channel 2 description "Link - TPL-Core" switchport mode general switchport general pvid 11 switchport general allowed vlan add 2,5,23 tagged switchport general allowed vlan add 11 untagged switchport general allowed remove  vlan 1 Then for connectivity try pinging between clients, and not switch interfaces. Keep us posted.
I have 2 N3048 switches as my core for virtualization and 3 N2048 switches stacked for computer/phones.   I need to connect the two stacks, I have 4 cat6 cables connecting them as such  N3048 1/0/47 -> N2048 1/0/47 N3048 1/0/48 -> N2048 1/0/48 N3048 2/0/47 -> N2048 2/0/48 N3048 2/0/48 -> N2048 3/0/48  VLANs that need to intercommunicate are VLAN 2, 5, 11, 23 Computers are VLAN 2 (10.10.2.0/24) Serviers is VLAN 11 (10.10.1.0/24) Development is VLAN 23 (10.10.8.0/24) MGMT is VLAN 5 (10.10.5.0/24) Each of these vlans have an IP address assigned interface on each switch.  My question is: 4 ports used over kill? Should this be a LAG / port channel? And how the heck to configure them.  Currently here is my config  Core Stack: interface Gi1/0/47channel-group 1 mode activespanning-tree portfastswitchport mode trunkexit!interface Gi1/0/48channel-group 1 mode activespanning-tree portfastswitchport mode trunk interface Gi2/0/47channel-group 1 mode activespanning-tree portfastswitchport mode trunkexit!interface Gi2/0/48channel-group 1 mode activespanning-tree portfastswitchport mode trunkexit!interface port-channel 1description "Link - Stack1"switchport mode generalswitchport general pvid 11switchport general allowed vlan add 2,5,11,23exit  User Stack1 interface Gi1/0/47channel-group 2 mode activeswitchport mode trunkexit!interface Gi1/0/48channel-group 2 mode activeswitchport mode trunkexit!interface Gi2/0/48channel-group 2 mode activeswitchport mode trunkexit!interface Gi3/0/48channel-group 2 mode activeswitchport mode trunkexit!interface port-channel 2description "Link - TPL-Core"switchport mode generalswitchport general pvid 11switchport general allowed vlan add 2,5,11,23exit  I'm only able to ping the 10.10.1.0 interface between switches.. so I know I've got thi completely wrong.. thanks for the help!  
Trunk N3048 Stack to N2048 Stack