L2 Feature; Link Aggregation - EnGenius EWS Series User Manual

L2 Feature

The L2 Feature tab exhibits complete standard-based Layer 2 switching capabilities, including: Link
Aggregation, 802.1D Spanning Tree Protocol, 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, 802.1s Multiple
Spanning Tree Protocol, MAC Address Table, Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) Snooping,
Port Mirroring, 802.1ab Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD)
snooping. Utilize these features to configure the Switch to your preferences.

Link Aggregation

A Link Aggregation Group (LAG) optimizes port usage by linking a group of ports together to form a
single, logical, higher-bandwidth link. Aggregating ports multiplies the bandwidth and increases port
flexibility for the Switch. Link Aggregation is most commonly used to link a bandwidth intensive network
device (or devices), such as a server, to the backbone of a network.
The participating ports are called Members of a port trunk group. Since all ports of the trunk group must
be configured to operate in the same manner, the configuration of the one port of the trunk group is
applied to all ports of the trunk group. Thus, you will only need to configure one of any of the ports in a
trunk group. A specific data communication packet will always be transmitted over the same port in a
trunk group. This ensures the delivery of individual frames of a data communication packet will be
received in the correct order. The traffic load of the LAG will be balanced among the ports according to
Aggregate Arithmetic. If the connections of one or several ports are broken, the traffic of these ports will
be transmitted on the normal ports, so as to guarantee the connection reliability.
When you aggregate ports, the ports and LAG must fulfill the following conditions:
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All ports within a LAG must be the same media/format type.
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A VLAN is not configured on the port.
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The port is not assigned to another LAG.
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The Auto-negotiation mode is not configured on the port.
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The port is in full-duplex mode.
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All ports in the LAG have the same ingress filtering and tagged modes.
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