Autosensing And Autonegotiation; Multilink Trunking - Nortel BayStack 410 24T Using Manual

Using the BayStack 410-24T 10BASE-T Switch

Autosensing and Autonegotiation

BayStack 410-24T switches are autosensing and autonegotiating devices. The
term autosense refers to a port's ability to sense the speed of an attached device.
The term autonegotiation refers to a standardized protocol (IEEE 802.3u) that
exists between two IEEE 802.3u-capable devices.
Because the BayStack 410-24T switch uses fixed 10BASE-T ports, the
autonegotiation feature does not negotiate the port speed when connecting to
another IEEE 802.3u-capable device. The BayStack 410-24T switch only
negotiates the best duplex mode.
When an optional 10/100 BASE-T MDA is installed, the autonegotiation feature
selects the best of both speed and duplex modes for that connection. The MDA
ports negotiate down from 100 Mb/s speed and full-duplex mode until a supported
speed and duplex mode is acknowledged by the attached device.
Autosensing is used when the attached device is not capable of autonegotiation or
is using a form of autonegotiation that is not compatible with the IEEE 802.3u
autonegotiation standard. In this case, because it is not possible to sense the
duplex mode of the attached device, the BayStack 410-24T switch reverts to
half-duplex mode.
For more information about autosensing and autonegotiation modes, see
"Autonegotiation Modes" on page 4-7.

MultiLink Trunking

The MultiLink Trunking feature allows you to group multiple ports (up to four)
together when forming a link to another switch or server, thus increasing
aggregate throughput of the interconnection between two devices (up to 800 Mb/s
in full-duplex mode when an optional 100BASE-T MDA is installed). BayStack
410-24T switches can be configured with up to six MultiLink Trunks. The trunk
members can be configured within a single unit in the stack or distributed between
any of the units within the stack configuration (distributed trunking).
For more information about the MultiLink Trunking feature, see
Trunks" on
1-18
page 1-61.
"MultiLink
309985-B Rev 00