3Com 3C17300-US Implementation Manual

Contents

Aggregated Links 31separately. If you do this, the traffic destined for that link is distributedto the other links in the aggregated link.If you do not remove the connection and only disable one end of themember link port, traffic is still forwarded to that port by theaggregated link port at the other end. This means that a significantamount of traffic may be lost.■ Before removing all member links from an aggregated link, you mustdisable all the aggregated link member ports or disconnect all thelinks, except one — if you do not, a loop may be created.Traffic Distribution and Link Failure on Aggregated LinksTo maximize throughput, all traffic is distributed across the individual linksthat make up an aggregated link. Therefore, when a packet is madeavailable for transmission down an aggregated link, a hardware-basedtraffic distribution mechanism determines which particular port in the linkshould be used; this mechanism uses the MAC address. The traffic isdistributed among the member links as efficiently as possible.To avoid the potential problem of out-of-sequence packets (or "packetre-ordering"), the Switch ensures that all the conversations between agiven pair of endstations will pass through the same port in theaggregated link. Single-to-multiple endstation conversations, on theother hand, may still take place over different ports.If the link state on any of the ports in an aggregated link becomesinactive due to link failure, then the Switch will automatically redirect theaggregated link traffic to the remaining ports. Aggregated links thereforeprovide built-in resilience for your network.dua1730-0bAA03.book Page 31 Monday, July 11, 2005 11:14 AM