How Link Aggregation Works

Document ID: 108906

Questions
Introduction
What is Link Aggregation (LAG) and how does it work?
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Introduction
This article is one in a series to assist in the setup, troubleshooting, and maintenance of Cisco Small Business
products.

Refer to Cisco Technical Tips Conventions for more information on document conventions.

Q. What is Link Aggregation (LAG) and how does it work?

A. Link aggregation, or IEEE 802.3ad, is a computer networking term which describes using
multiple Ethernet network cables/ports in parallel to increase the link speed beyond the limits
of any one single cable or port, and to increase the redundancy for higher availability. Other
terms for this include Ethernet trunk, NIC teaming, port teaming, port trunking,
EtherChannel, Multi−Link Trunking (MLT), DMLT, SMLT, DSMLT, R−SMLT, NIC
bonding, and link aggregate group (LAG). Most implementations now conform to clause 43
of IEEE 802.3 standard, informally referred to as 802.3ad.

This diagram is an example of Link aggregation:

Note: A limitation of Link aggregation is that all the physical ports in the link aggregation
group must reside on the same switch. SMLT, DSMLT and RSMLT technologies remove this
limitation by allowing the physical ports to be split between two switches.

Understanding Link Aggregation as a Network Backbone

Link aggregation is an inexpensive way to set up a high−speed backbone network that

transfers much more data than any one single port or device can deliver. Although in the past
various vendors used proprietary techniques, the preference today is to use the IEEE standard
Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). This allows several devices to communicate
simultaneously at their full single−port speed, while not allowing any one single device to
monopolize all available backbone capacity.

Link aggregation also allows the network's backbone speed to grow incrementally as demand
on the network increases, without having to replace everything and buy new hardware.
For most backbone installations, it is common to install more cabling or fiber optic pairs than
are initially necessary, even if there is no immediate need for the additional cabling. This is
done because labor costs are higher than the cost of the cable and running extra cable reduces
future labor costs if networking needs change. Link aggregation can allow the use of these
extra cables to increase backbone speeds for little or no extra cost if ports are available.

The benefits of link aggregation are:

♦ Higher link availability

♦ Increased link capacity
♦ Improvements are obtained using existing hardware (no upgrading to higher−capacity
link technology is necessary)
Higher Link Availability

Link aggregation prevents the failure of any single component link from leading to a
disruption of the communications between the interconnected devices. The loss of a link
within an aggregation reduces the available capacity but the connection is maintained and the
data flow is not interrupted.

Increased Link Capacity

The performance is improved because the capacity of an aggregated link is higher than each
individual link alone. Standard LAN technology provides data rates of 10 Mb/s, 100 Mb/s,
and 1000 Mb/s. Link Aggregation can fill the gaps of these available data rates when an
intermediate performance level is more appropriate; an increase by a factor of 10 may be
overkill in some environments. If a higher capacity than 1000 Mb/s is needed, the user can
group several SysKonnect 1000 Mb/s adapters together to form a high speed connection and
additionally benefit from the failover function the SysKonnect driver for Link Aggregation
supports. This provides migration to 10 Gigabit Ethernet solutions which are not yet
available.

Aggregating Replaces Upgrading

If the link capacity is to be increased, there are usually two possibilities: either upgrade the
native link capacity or use an aggregate of two or more lower−speed links (if provided by the
card's manufacturer). Upgrades typically occur in factors of 10. In many cases, however, the
device cannot take advantage of this increase. A performance improvement of 1:10 is not
achieved, moreover the bottleneck is just moved from the network link to some other element
within the device. Thus, the performance will always be limited by the weakest link, the
end−to−end connection.

These figures show the different types of link aggregation:

Fig. 1 Switch to Switch Connection

Fig. 2 Switch to Station (switch to server)

Fig. 3 Station to Station

Understanding Link Aggregation on Network Interface Cards

Link aggregation (LAG) is not just for the core switching equipment. Network interface cards
(NICs) can also sometimes be trunked together to form network links beyond the speed of
any one single NIC. For example, this allows a central file server to establish a 2−gigabit
connection using two 1−gigabit NICs trunked together.

Note that when using Microsoft Windows, establishing a trunk with NICs usually only works
among certain NIC types, and all must usually be of the same brand. The trunk itself is
typically established at the device driver or NDIS level.

In Linux, Ethernet bonding (trunking) is implemented on a higher level, and can hence deal
with NICs from different manufacturers or drivers, as long as the NIC is supported by the
kernel.

Trunking of Different Types of Cabling and Speeds

Typically the ports used in a trunk should be all of the same type, such as all copper ports
(CAT−5E/CAT−6), all multi−mode fiber ports (SX), or all single−mode fiber ports (LX).

The ports also need to operate at the same speed. It is possible to trunk 100−megabit ports
together, but trunking a 100−megabit port and a gigabit port together will most likely not
work, even though mixing port sizes within a trunk is technically supported in the 802.3ad
standard. Ports operating in different duplex will not aggregate. One half duplex and a full
duplex port cannot aggregate.

Trunking Support and Cross−brand Compatibility

A limitation on link aggregation is that it would like to avoid reordering Ethernet frames. That
goal is approximated by sending all frames associated with a particular session across the
same link. Depending on the traffic, this may not provide even distribution across the links in
the trunk.

Most gigabit trunking is now based on clause 43 of the IEEE 802.3 standard added in March
2000 by the IEEE 802.3ad task force. Other proprietary trunking protocols existed before this
standard was established. Some examples include the Cisco Port Aggregation Protocol
 (PAgP), Adaptec's Duralink trunking, and Nortel MLT Multi−link trunking. These custom
trunking protocols typically only work for interconnecting equipment from the same
manufacturer or product line.

Even though many manufacturers now implement the standard, issues may occur (for
example Ethernet auto−negotiation). Testing before production implementation is prudent.

Intel has released a package for Linux called Advanced Networking Services (ANS) to bind
Intel Fast Ethernet and Gigabit cards. Also, newer Linux kernels support bonding between
NICs of the same type.

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Updated: Dec 12, 2008 Document ID: 108906