Cabletron Systems SmartSwitch manual Chapter SmartTRUNK Configuration Guide, Overview

Chapter 4

SmartTRUNK

Configuration

Guide

Overview

This chapter explains how to configure and monitor SmartTRUNKs on the SSR. A SmartTRUNK is Cabletron Systems’ technology for load balancing and load sharing. For a description of the SmartTRUNK commands, see the “smarttrunk commands” section of the SSR Command Line Interface Manual.

On the SSR, a SmartTRUNK is a group of two or more ports that have been logically combined into a single port. Multiple physical connections between devices are aggregated into a single logical, high-speed path that acts as a single link. Traffic is balanced across all interfaces in the combined link, increasing overall available system bandwidth.

SmartTRUNKs allow administrators the ability to increase bandwidth at congestion points in the network, thus eliminating potential traffic bottlenecks. SmartTRUNKs also provide improved data link resiliency. If one port in a SmartTRUNK should fail, its load is distributed evenly among the remaining ports and the entire SmartTRUNK link remains operational.

SmartTRUNK is Cabletron’s standard for building high-performance links between Cabletron’s switching platforms. SmartTRUNKs can interoperate with switches, routers, and servers from other vendors as well as Cabletron platforms.

SmartTrunks are compatible with all SSR features, including VLANs, STP, VRRP, etc. SmartTRUNK operation is supported over different media types and a variety of technologies including 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet.

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