Configuring EtherChannel
As introduced back in Chapter 1, “The TCP/IP and OSI Networking Models,” two neighboring switches can treat multiple parallel links between each other as a single logical link called an EtherChannel. STP operates on the EtherChannel, instead of the individual physical links, so that STP either forwards or blocks on the entire logical EtherChannel for a given VLAN. As a result, a switch in a forwarding state can then load balance traffic over all the physical links in the EtherChannel. Without EtherChannel, only one of the parallel links between two switches would be allowed to forward traffic, with the rest of the links blocked by STP.
EtherChannel may be one of the most challenging switch features to make work. First, ...
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