Etherchannel And Switch Stacks - Cisco 3032 Software Configuration Manual

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Configuring EtherChannels and Link-State Tracking

forwarding on the switch EtherChannel ensures that the switch uses all available bandwidth to the router.

The router is configured for destination-based forwarding because the large number of workstations

ensures that the traffic is evenly distributed from the router EtherChannel.

Use the option that provides the greatest variety in your configuration. For example, if the traffic on a

channel is going only to a single MAC address, using the destination-MAC address always chooses the

same link in the channel. Using source addresses or IP addresses might result in better load-balancing.

EtherChannel and Switch Stacks

If a stack member that has ports participating in an EtherChannel fails or leaves the stack, the stack

master removes the failed stack member switch ports from the EtherChannel. The remaining ports of the

EtherChannel, if any, continue to provide connectivity.

When a switch is added to an existing stack, the new switch receives the running configuration from the

stack master and updates itself with the EtherChannel-related stack configuration. The stack member

also receives the operational information (the list of ports that are up and are members of a channel).

When two stacks merge that have EtherChannels configured between them, self-looped ports result.

Spanning tree detects this condition and acts accordingly. Any PAgP or LACP configuration on a

winning switch stack is not affected, but the PAgP or LACP configuration on the losing switch stack is

lost after the stack reboots.

Load Distribution and Forwarding Methods

Blade Switch with

source-based

forwarding enabled

EtherChannel

Cisco router

with destination-based

forwarding enabled

Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3130 and 3032 for Dell Software Configuration Guide

Understanding EtherChannels

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