24-port NWay Ethernet Switch User’s Guide
Configuring the Switch Using the Console Interface
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Link Aggregation
Link aggregation allows several ports to be grouped together and
to act as a single link. This gives a bandwidth that is a multiple
of a single link’s bandwidth.
Link Aggregation is most commonly used to link a bandwidth
intensive network device or devices – such as a server or server
farm – to the backbone of a network.
Note:
The DES-3326 allows the creation of up to 6 link
aggregation groups, each group consisting of up of up to 8
links (ports). The aggregated links must be contiguous
(they must have sequential port numbers) and each group
must fall within an 8 port boundary (groups may be
within ports 1 to 8, ports 9 to 16, and ports 17 to 24),
except the two (optional) Gigabit ports – which can only
belong to a single link aggregation group. A link
aggregation group may not cross an 8 port boundary,
starting with port 1 (a group may not contain ports 8 and
9, for example) and all of the ports in the group must be
members of the same VLAN. Further, the linked ports
must all be of the same speed and should be configured as
full-duplex.
The configuration of the lowest numbered port in the group
becomes the configuration for all of the ports in the aggregation
group. This port is called the base port of the group, and all
configuration options – including the VLAN configuration – that
can be applied to the base port are applied to the entire link
aggregation group.
Load balancing is automatically applied to the links in the
aggregation group, and a link failure within the group causes the
network traffic to be directed to the remaining links in the group.
