LevelOne GSW-4876 - Manual (Page 122)

C HAPTER 4 | Configuring the Switch
Creating Trunk Groups
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C ONFIGURING S TATIC
T RUNKS
Use the Aggregation Mode Configuration page to configure the aggregation
mode and members of each static trunk group.
P ATH
Basic/Advanced Configuration, Aggregation, Static
U SAGE G UIDELINES
◆ When configuring static trunks, you may not be able to link switches of
different types, depending on the manufacturer's implementation.
However, note that the static trunks on this switch are Cisco
EtherChannel compatible.
◆ To avoid creating a loop in the network, be sure you add a static trunk
via the configuration interface before connecting the ports, and also
disconnect the ports before removing a static trunk via the
configuration interface.
◆ When incoming data frames are forwarded through the switch to a
trunk, the switch must determine to which port link in the trunk an
outgoing frame should be sent. To maintain the frame sequence of
various traffic flows between devices in the network, the switch also
needs to ensure that frames in each “conversation” are mapped to the
same trunk link. To achieve this requirement and to distribute a
balanced load across all links in a trunk, the switch uses a hash
algorithm to calculate an output link number in the trunk. However,
depending on the device to which a trunk is connected and the traffic
flows in the network, this load-balance algorithm may result in traffic
being distributed mostly on one port in a trunk. To ensure that the
switch traffic load is distributed evenly across all links in a trunk, the
hash method used in the load-balance calculation can be selected to
provide the best result for trunk connections. The switch provides four
load-balancing modes as described in the following section.
◆ Aggregation Mode Configuration also applies to LACP (see "Configuring
LACP" on page 124 ).
P ARAMETERS
These parameters are displayed:
Aggregation Mode Configuration
◆ Hash Code Contributors – Selects the load-balance method to apply
to all trunks on the switch. If more than one option is selected, each
factor is used in the hash algorithm to determine the port member
within the trunk to which a frame will be assigned. The following
options are supported:
■
Source MAC Address – All traffic with the same source MAC
address is output on the same link in a trunk. This mode works best
for switch-to-switch trunk links where traffic through the switch is
received from many different hosts. (One of the defaults.)