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Trunk Port trunk allows multiple links to be bundled together and act as a single physical
link for increased throughput. It provides load balancing, and redundancy of links
in a switched inter-network. Actually, the link does not have an inherent total
bandwidth equal to the sum of its component physical links. Traffic in a trunk is
distributed across an individual link within the trunk in a deterministic method that
called a hash algorithm. The hash algorithm automatically applies load balancing
to the ports in the trunk. A port failure within the trunk group causes the network
traffic to be directed to the remaining ports. Load balancing is maintained
whenever a link in a trunk is lost or returned to service. This switch may use Port
ID, Source MAC Address, Destination MAC Address, or a combination of Source
MAC Address and Destination MAC Address to be the selection for Trunk Hash
Algorithm. Traffic pattern on the network should be considered carefully before
applying it. When a proper hash algorithm is used, traffic is kind of randomly
decided to be transmitted across either link within the trunk and load balancing will
be seen.
Trunk Configuration
Trunk Hash Algorithm Selection: Click on the radio button to choose the
method for trunk hash algorithm.
When trunk type is set in LACP mode, the trunk group is using LACP which allows
bundling several physical ports together to form a single logical channel. A port
which joins an LACP trunk group has to make an agreement with its member ports
first. LACP allows a network switch to negotiate an automatic bundle by sending
LACP packets to the peer. LACP is a protocol implementation in OSI layer 2 which
controls through which physical links the traffic will be routed.
Set the trunk type in Static mode to configure the trunk group as a static one. The
advantage of static mode is that a port joins the trunk group without any
handshaking with its member ports. But member ports won’t know that they should