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Dell Converged Enhanced Ethernet Administrator’s Guide 65
53-1002116-01
Chapter
7
Configuring Link Aggregation using the CEE CLI
In this chapter
•Link aggregation overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
•LACP configuration guidelines and restrictions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
•Default LACP configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
•LACP configuration and management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
•LACP troubleshooting tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Link aggregation overview
Link aggregation allows you to bundle multiple physical Ethernet links to form a single logical trunk
providing enhanced performance and redundancy. The aggregated trunk is referred to as a Link
Aggregation Group (LAG). The LAG is viewed as a single link by connected devices, the spanning
tree protocol, IEEE 802.1Q VLANs, and so on. When one physical link in the LAG fails, the other
links stay up and there is no disruption to traffic.
To configure links to form a LAG, the physical links must be the same speed and all links must go to
the same neighboring device. Link aggregation can be done by manually configuring the LAG or by
dynamically configuring the LAG using the IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP).
NOTE
The LAG or LAG interface is also referred to as a port-channel.
The benefits of link aggregation are summarized as follows:
• Increased bandwidth. The logical bandwidth can be dynamically changed as the demand
changes.
• Increased availability.
• Load sharing.
• Rapid configuration and reconfiguration.
The Dell FCoE hardware supports the following trunk types:
• Static, standards-based LAG.
• Dynamic, standards-based LAG using LACP.
• Static, Dell-proprietary LAG.
• Dynamic, Dell-proprietary LAG using proprietary enhancements to LACP.
Link Aggregation Group configuration
You can configure a maximum of 24 Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) with up to 16 links per standard
LAG and four links per Dell-proprietary LAG. Each LAG is associated with an aggregator. The
aggregator manages the Ethernet frame collection and distribution functions.