Etherchannel configuration, port channel interfaces, lacp 1. Etherchannel loadbalancing example consider the following example, where ports gi223 and gi224 on both switches are members of an etherchannel. To balance the load, etherchannel uses mac addresses, ip addresses, or layer 4 port. A switch decides which member link a frame will traverse by the outcome of a hash function performed against one or more fields of each frame. To learn more about packet distribution and load balancing, see etherchannel loadbalancing options. To determine which etherchannel member will be used to forward a frame, the switch performs mad maths based on the loadbalancing method youve selected. In 2008 free ccna workbook originally started as a sharable pdf but quickly evolved into the largest ccna training lab website on the net. But i really want you to focus on spanning tree protocols blocked port.
While application load balancers can be used to distribute load across across an array of devices for a particular application or purpose, this article will concentrate on layer 3. The port channel load balancing feature that you are referring to is the portchannel loadbalance method command. Jun 07, 2014 i have some doubt in l3 etherchannel load balancing. Part 2 dives into the actual details of the protocols and how to configure them on your devices. What are two loadbalancing methods in the etherchannel.
Were bundling the links together, aggregating them together, improving the bandwidth and the distribution of traffic in our topology. If i understand when you statically configure etherchannel on switch ports, you will have to do it in both connecting switches. A disable etherchannel load balancing b upgrade the switch. Etherchannel bundles the physical links into one logical link with the combined bandwidth and it is awesome. At a device configured to forward packets in a network, a plurality of queues are generated, each associated with a corresponding one of a plurality of output ports of the device and from which packets are to be output from the device into the network. Now, to finish configuration i need to specify loadbalancing method on both ends. These methods include source mac to destination mac load balancing, or source ip to destination ip load balancing, across the physical links. Load balancing takes place between links that are part of the same etherchannel. You are not allowed to use any protocol for negotiation. Depending on the hardware platform, one or more load balancing methods can be implemented. Etherchannel on mode does not send or receive pagp or lacp. Using etherchannel load balancing this guide helps you to understand and deploy the high bandwidth features available with ips v5. Catalyst 6500, 4500, and 3750 series switches etherchannel.
Part 1 defines what etherchannel is and cases for using it in your networks from a nontechnical perspective. A disable etherchannel load balancing b upgrade the switch ios to ip services from computersc 51 at harvard university. The bundles use an algorithm to determine each links load, so they will never be able to operate at 100% capacity of the sum of the links. Jul 21, 2008 etherchannel is a very effective feature that provides redundancy and load distribution within your switching network. Etherchannel has been a part of the cisco ios for many years, so you should find that all your switches support it with proper configuration. Determine what type of load balancing is used on the etherchannel 1 by using the show etherchannel load balance. The boys didnt sleep at all this afternoon, so now its half past eight at night and its time for a snack. Some other options would be to turn off dtp if you are trunking nonegotiate, turn channel mode on no lacppagp, and make sure you use portfast. Verify the operation of the etherchannel trunk link by verifying ip communication between r1 and r2 using the ping command. Configuring an etherchannel link free ccna workbook. Etherchannel theory best cisco ccna ccnp and linux. This hash result is commonly called as result bundle. Etherchannel linkbandwidth aggregation in the form of redundancy is a technology that lets you bundle multiple physical links into a single logical link.
Etherchannel provides loadbalancing only per frame, not per bit. Understanding etherchannel load balancing and redundancy on catalyst switches. We can take a look at the benefits of etherchannel technology. Now, to finish configuration i need to specify load balancing method on both ends. The distribution layer switches are catalyst 3560 switches, and the access layer switches are catalyst 2960. Hi, 6500 has several options for etherchannelload balancing mac, ip adddress, port number and mpls. Abdul rauf abidi september 10, at at first, congratulations for. Another consideration to make when implementing etherchannels is the type of load balancing in effect.
Configuring etherchannel load balancing, page 2011. What is etherchannel in cisco switches and routers. Now we need to convert load value from hexadecimal to binary numbers. Enter the adapter that you want to use as your etherchannel backup. Configure the etherchannel between sw1 and sw2 to use destination mac address loadbalancing. This command sets the load distribution method that will be used to distribute traffic among the ports in the bundle. Lan switching configuration guide flowbased per port. Load balancing etherchannel can balance the traffic load across the links in the channel by reducing part of the binary pattern formed from the addresses or ports in the frame to a numerical value that selects one of the links in the channel. In our example above, 4x1gbps interfaces were bundled together thus forming a 4gbps pipe from users to servers. Stp blocks redundant links whereas etherchannel can be used to provide redundacncy i. This is great for stp redundancy because stp will only need to reconverge if all links within the. In networks where resources may be located far from where users might need them, some links between switches or between switches and servers become heavily solicited. The typical cisco etherchannel algorithm will generate a hash value of 0 7 for each flow.
Etherchannels provide load balancing by default and the basic configuration uses. And i really want, you to keep the concept of loadbalancing algorithms in mind, as you doing your configuration in the real world, because it easier to get a false sense of assurance thinking, that we doing loadbalancing fairly, evenly when we really were no, in this case, i got 4 links and, we were looking at the last 2 bits, in this case the last bits of the macaddress. Implementation tasks can be done on ethernetchannel instead of implementing or configuring on every single port. Etherchannel help improve operation when ethernet switches are interconnected using multiple physical interfaces.
The way etherchannel load balancing works is that the switch assigns a hash result from 07 based on the configured hash method load balancing algorithm for the type of traffic. This is often used with servers which have bad or no lacp protocol support in their nic drivers. That means the load will not be balanced equally amongst the individual links. This hash result is commonly called as result bundle hash rbh. When the number of packets in the at least one queue exceeds a. Jul 09, 2007 fast etherchannel allows multiple physical fast ethernet links to combine into one logical channel. To learn more about packet distribution and load balancing, see etherchannel load balancing options. The problem is that with this configuration we do not get any lacp packages and the etherchannel does not come up. Dynamic load balancing techniques among ports of a network device are provided.
How can i get the load to be roundrobin to the three available nics. Sep 02, 2016 you can watch the full lab by topic at the links below. Understanding etherchannel load balancing and redundancy on catalyst switches document id. Portchannel and traffic is loadbalanced between all interfaces. Fast etherchannel can be used to interconnect lan switches, routers, servers, and clients via unshielded twisted pair utp wiring or singlemode and. Depending on the hardware platform, one or more loadbalancing methods can be implemented. This hash result is commonly called a result bundle hash rbh. We are going to analyze how to select the load balancing method based on placement of switch and traffic type that needs.
Do not be afraid to enable it on a pair of ports and try it. Most of the issues with etherchannels link aggregation are because of misconfiguration. But because it is sometimes more important for some data to be received rather than sent, cisco gives you a choice. These methods include source mac to destination mac load balancing, or source ip. Here the etherchannel loadbalancing mechanism is configured to use source and destination ip address pairs. If an ethernet frame is received with type equal to mpls and is to be switched over an etherchannel with load balancing set for ip address will it a look deeper in the frame for the ip address o. Etherchannel can use two methods for load balancing cisco device connections, with the default load balancing based on the source mac address of the system sending data.
From my observations and test etherchannel load balance there is only 1 nic used to transfer data no matter what load balance hash i use. I want to increase bandwidth on trunk between two for now switches specifically 3750 and 6500. This rule is applied to ipv4 and ipv6 traffic, whereas the nonip loadbalancing mechanism uses source and destination mac address pairs. The load balancing method must be configured globally on the switch. Load balancing using etherchannels cisco nxos load balances traffic across all operationa l interfaces in an etherchannel by reducing part of the binary pattern formed from the addresses in th e frame to a numerical value that selects one of the links in the channel. You can also simply force switch to do port channel no matter what.
The first step is assigning the physical interfaces to the etherchannel, with different keywords indicating which protocol is to be used. The mode you select applies to all etherchannels that you configure on the switch. Etherchannel is a port link aggregation technology or portchannel architecture used primarily. Flowbased per portchannel load balancing theflowbasedperportchannelloadbalancingfeatureallowsdifferentflowsoftrafficoveragigabit etherchannel gec. Etherchannel load balancing can use mac addresses, ip addresses, or layer 4 port numbers with a policy feature card 2 pfc2 and either source mode, destination mode, or both. It allows grouping of several physical ethernet links to create one logical ethernet link for the purpose of providing faulttolerance and highspeed links between switches, routers and servers. Which virtual switch load balancing method should be used when teaming network interfaces with etherchannel. The first port in the etherchannel will become link0. Another consideration to make when implementing etherchannels is the type of loadbalancing in effect. I was wondering if there was a difference between the two modes standard and ad when it comes to the load balancing algorithm used.
Setting up ibm power systems 10 gigabit ethernet ports and aix 6. This allows load sharing of traffic among the links in the channel as well as redundancy in the event that one or more links in the channel fail. If a link within the etherchannel bundle fails, traffic previously carried over the failed link is carried over the remaining links within the etherchannel. Sw1 should actively try to form an etherchannel and sw3 should only respond to requests. We can manage load balancing, redundancy on cisco switches with the help of ethernetchannel. Lacp vs static etherchannel in vmware i would like to have clear understanding about lacp and static etherechannel. Etherchannel provides load balancing only per frame, not per bit. Verify you are using src dst ip on the physical switches, and ip hash as your load balancing policy on the vswitches. The flowbased per portchannel load balancing feature allows different flows of traffic over a gigabit etherchannel gec interface to be identified based on the packet header and then mapped to the different member links of the port channel. Link status only our network team configured the switches with etherchannel and active lacp. The loadbalancing method must be configured globally on the switch. Etherchannel is a port link aggregation technology or portchannel architecture used primarily on cisco switches. Configuring ips high bandwidth using etherchannel load.
In regard to vmware vsphere, combining multiple network links can be done with the ieee 802. Etherchannel also does load balancing among the links in the channel automatically. I did set up srcdstmac load balancing on sw1 and sw2, it is a global statement. In a more traditional network function, spanningtree protocol blocks one redundant link to avoid layer 2 loops, what etherchannels does is to use load balancing on traffic between the redundant links. By using etherchannel you only need some more unused ports on your switches. Ccnp switch aggregating switch links l2l3 etherchannel. How to determine the link across which to send traffic this section explains the load balance of packets over an etherchannel group for each switch platform.
Ecmp load balancing is done at the session level, not at the packet levelthe start of a new session is when the firewall ecmp chooses an equalcost path. Ibm corporation 2 aix etherchannel on 10 gigabit ethernet interfaces ibm power6 processorbased servers and above offer integrated virtual ethernet adapters ive, which. Manual etherchannel configuration in cisco switches using. Perhaps basing the loadbalancing on ip and port number would be better in this case. Nov 26, 2017 etherchannel is a feature used to group multiple parallel links into one single logical interface.
When setting up an etherchannel connection, remember the following points. Load balancing can also be used to describe link bonding. Setting up ibm power systems 10 gigabit ethernet ports and. Determine what type of load balancing is used on the etherchannel 1 by using the show etherchannel loadbalance as shown below. It was observed that with sourcedestination ip load balancing, the balancing ends up more like 70. Frames with sapsnap encapsulation are loadbalanced as layer 2 traffic. Troubleshooting an etherchannel show etherchannel summary show etherchannel port show runningconfig interface show interface etherchannel show etherchannel loadbalance the whole concept is based on consistent configurations on both ends of the channel. The speed of these links can be increased, but only to a certain point. Information about load balancing, page 207 etherchannel feature overview an etherchannel bundles individual ethernet links into a single logical link that provides the aggregate bandwidth of up to eight physical links. An etherchannel is a link aggregation technology whereby two switches are connected together with multiple interfaces which are bundled together to form a single logical interface. Stp blocks redundant links whereas etherchannel can be used to load balance those links. Notice the number of flows are dependent on the configured load balancing algorithm.
If you have server side nic teaming link aggregation configured for switch independent mode it will enable serverside load balancing across multiple server nics without the use of lacp protocol. The way etherchannel load balancing works is the switch assigns a hash result from 07 based on the configured hash method load balancing algorithm for the type of traffic. Catalyst 65006000 series etherchannel reduces part of the binary pattern that the addresses in the frame form to a. The concept manual etherchannel configuration is arrived from cisco as a lan switchtoswitch technique, which is port link aggregation technology dispenses faulttolerant speed links between the servers, switches, and routers. Understanding etherchannel load balancing and redundancy. Esx nic teaming and etherchannel of cisco vmware communities.
One real problem would be etherchannel across 6509, however, you should be able to do etherchannel across the modules with in the switch, or with the same stack of 3750. The equalcost paths to a single destination are considered ecmp path members or ecmp group members. An etherchannel can be created from between two and eight active fast, gigabit or 10. Sep 22, 2018 the way etherchannel load balancing works is that the switch assigns a hash result from 07 based on the configured hash method load balancing algorithm for the type of traffic. Stp sees this link as a single link so stp will not block any links. However failing to choose the right load distribution algorithm my leave you under utilizing your network resources. For both pagp and lacp etherchannels, cisco switches use a polymorphic algorithm that utilizes key fields from the header of the packet to generate a hash, which is then matched to a physical link in the etherchannel group. Page 1 of 10 understanding etherchannel load balancing and redundancy on catalyst switches document id. Etherchannel load balancing example consider the following example, where ports gi223 and gi224 on both switches are members of an etherchannel. Here the etherchannel load balancing mechanism is configured to use source and destination ip address pairs.
Etherchannel load balancing lacp vs pagp icnd2 200105. Oct 05, 2018 basing the loadbalancing on ip address also wont be efficient, as the same two ips source and destination are used for all traffic. Ok, i configure etherchannel between them on two ports making bandwidth up to 2 gb. Etherchannel load balancing case study networkers online.
How to determine the link across w hich to send traffic catalyst 65006000 series catalyst 55005000 series catalyst 45004000 series. Etherchannel is a feature used to group multiple parallel links into one single logical interface. Jul 26, 2011 load balancing traffic across port members of the same etherchannel is a key element in an etherchannel configuration. Nov 27, 2010 commonly available etherchannel loadbalancing methods include source and destination macs, source and destination ips, and my personal favorite source and destination layer 4 port. Us20120307641a1 dynamic flow segregation for optimal. Commonly available etherchannel loadbalancing methods include source and destination macs, source and destination ips, and my personal favorite source and destination layer 4 port. Cisco switch etherchannel configuration lacp pagp in this article we will describe how to configure both lacp and pagp etherchannels on cisco switches. To determine which etherchannel member will be used to forward a frame, the switch. The typical cisco etherchannel algorithm will generate a. Basing the loadbalancing on ip address also wont be efficient, as the same two ips source and destination are used for all traffic. Lacp vs static etherchannel in vmware solutions experts.
A hash algorithm is used to determine which individual interface each frame is forwarded through. What are two loadbalancing methods in the etherchannel technology. Part 2 there are 3 methods to configure etherchannel in your network. Understanding etherchannel load balancing and redundancy on. To see if etherchannel is workingto see as one logical link 1.
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