Using VLANs, Spanning Tree, and Hunt Groups (Layer 2 and Layer 3)

Hunt groups also provide fault tolerance. If a port in a hunt group fails, the remaining ports will continue forwarding the traffic on the link.

Hunt Group Considerations

Considerations before creating hunt groups include:

❒The switches do not yet have a link discovery protocol. When creating a hunt group, you have to verify that the ports in a group on one switch are physically connected to the ports in that group on the other switch.

❒If one end of a connection is in a hunt group, the other end of the connection should also be in a hunt group. If you don’t do this, the forwarding behavior of the hunt group will be unpredictable.

❒You should disable the ports in a hunt group until both ends of the link are configured.

❒All ports in a hunt group must be the same speed.

❒Packets arriving on different fabric ports within the switch will have loads balanced more evenly.

❒Hunt groups will not load share if the source and destination traffic and the hunt group ports are on the same fabric port. Most I/O modules divide their ports evenly across two fabric ports. For 10-port and 12-port I/O modules, all ports use a single fabric port.

❒The first port assigned to a hunt group becomes the flood port. It can not be changed unless the flood port is disabled.

Configuring Hunt Groups

To configure a hunt group:

1.Ensure that the same-speed ports that you are configuring into a hunt group are physically connected to each other (for example, in a four-port gigabit hunt group, ensure that you have four fiber cables with switch ports connected at each end).

Note: Auto-negotiation should be disabled on the ports to further insure against speed mismatch.

2.From the System Configuration section of the Web Agent window, click Modules and Ports. The Module Information dialog box opens.

3.In the Ports column, click on the port number. The Physical Port Configuration dialog box opens.

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Cajun P550/P220 Switch Operation Guide