Trunking Overview; Features; Benefits - 3Com corebuilder 3500 Implementation Manual

144 C 8: T
HAPTER RUNKING

Trunking Overview

Features

Benefits

A trunk (also known as an aggregated link) works at Layer 2 and allows
you to combine multiple Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, or FDDI ports
into a single high-speed link between two switches (see Figure 25).
Figure 25 Example of a Trunk
Trunk
(single logical port)
®
CoreBuilder 3500
The system treats trunked ports in the same way that it treats individual
ports. Also, all higher-level network functions — including Spanning Tree
algorithms, 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 system.
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, Gigabit Ethernet, or Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) 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
CoreBuilder 3500