D-Link DGS-3324SR User Manual page 47

D-Link DGS-3324SR Layer 3 Stackable Gigabit Ethernet Switch
The Switch treats all ports in a trunk group as a single port. Data transmitted to a specific host (destination
address) will always be transmitted over the same port in a trunk group. This allows packets in a data stream to
arrive in the same order they were sent.
Link aggregation allows several ports to be grouped together and to act as a single link. This gives a bandwidth
that is a multiple of a single link's bandwidth.
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 Switch allows the creation of up to 32 link aggregation groups, each group consisting of 2 to 8 links (ports).
The aggregated links must be contiguous (they must have sequential port numbers) except the two (optional)
Gigabit ports, which can only belong to a single link aggregation group. All of the ports in the group must be
members of the same VLAN, and their STP status, static multicast, traffic control, traffic segmentation, 802.1p
default priority configurations must be identical. Port locking , port mirroring and 802.1X must not be enabled
on the trunk group. Further, the aggregated links must all be of the same speed and should be configured as full-
duplex.
The Master Port of the group is to be configured by the user, and all configuration options, including the VLAN
configuration, that can be applied to the Master Port are applied to the entire link aggregation group.
Load balancing is automatically applied to the ports in the aggregated group, and a link failure within the group
causes the network traffic to be directed to the remaining links in the group.
The Spanning Tree Protocol will treat a link aggregation group as a single link, on the switch level. On the port
level, the STP will use the port parameters of the Master Port in the calculation of port cost and in determining
Figure 4- 4. Example of Port Trunk Group
Note: If any ports within the trunk group become disconnected, packets
intended for the disconnected port will be load shared among the other
uplinked ports of the link aggregation group.
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