Trunking Overview; Features; Benefits - 3Com 4007 Implementation Manual

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HAPTER RUNKING

Trunking Overview

Features

Benefits

A trunk (also known as an aggregated link) works at Layer 2 and Layer 3
of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model and allows you to
combine multiple Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet ports on interface
modules into a single high-speed link between two switches. See
Figure 10.
Figure 10 Conceptual Example of a Trunk
Trunk
(single logical port)
Switch 4007
An interface module treats trunked ports in the same way that it treats
individual ports. Also, all higher-level network functions — including
Spanning Tree algorithms, virtual LANs (VLANs), and Simple Network
Management Protocol (SNMP) management — do not distinguish a trunk
from any other network port.
You can configure the following trunking features:
Define — You specify ports and characteristics associated with the
trunk.
Modify — You modify a trunk's characteristics or add or remove a
port from the trunk.
Remove — You remove a trunk definition from the module.
Trunking can help you meet your network capacity and availability needs.
With trunks, you can cost-effectively increase the bandwidth between
switches or between servers and switches as your network requires. With
trunking, you combine multiple Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet ports
into a single high-speed channel.
If Gigabit Ethernet is not available, you can use trunked Fast Ethernet to
increase network capacity. After Gigabit Ethernet is in place and the time
comes to scale links beyond 1000 Mbps, you can use trunking to create
multigigabit connections.
Individual links
Switch 4007