Options

Ether Channel and asymmetric links

EmerytEmeryt Member Posts: 8 ■□□□□□□□□□
Let's suppose that we have to link with a provider with to links.
One 1Mbit/s and second 2 Mbit/s.

We want to use ether channel to make glue them together.

On LAN side there is a switch then 2 dsl modems slow link another modems on the provider side and second switch with ether channel.

I assume that modems are transparent to switch but this slow transfer and asimmetric links worries me that this won't work.
Will this work?

We should assign 1/3 of MAC addresses from LAN to first slower link and the other 2/3 to 2 MBit/s link. But ether channel as I know it don't have that option.
So maybe we could use a pair of ether channel and fast ether channel.
The second link would be fast ether channel and could pass through 9 of every 10 MAC.
This would create less congestion on 1 Mbit/s link.
But ether channel works on 10 Mbit/s and 100 Mbit/s links will this technology work on slower links?
I suppose it will because transfer raises from slow to maximum.
Maybe you could help.
The truth is out there.

E.M.E.R.Y.T.

Electronic Machine Engineered for Repair and Your Troubleshooting

Comments

  • Options
    WebmasterWebmaster Admin Posts: 10,292 Admin
    We should assign 1/3 of MAC addresses from LAN to first slower link and the other 2/3 to 2 MBit/s link. But ether channel as I know it don't have that option.
    Perhaps you can solve this by creating VLANs for those addresses? But then you would need a router to router between the VLANs on the two switches. I'm not familiar with "ether channel" so I hope someone else can help you further.
  • Options
    EmerytEmeryt Member Posts: 8 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Yeah
    Ether channel is not commonly used.

    First of all I want to assure that this is only theoretical problem. I've asked myself once is it possible to use ether channel instead load balancing or BGP on multiple links.
    On ether channel we have some advantages.
    If one of the links is broken the other takes all the traffic.
    Once I've asked about it someone with CCIE but he don't even know that ether channel is working on MAC addresses. So he couldn't help me.

    I was taking about pair of ether channel and fast ether channel only because the MAC splitting.
    If we would use ether channel on both we would have 50% MAC addresses on 1 Mbit/s and this would create congestion on slower link.
    The truth is out there.

    E.M.E.R.Y.T.

    Electronic Machine Engineered for Repair and Your Troubleshooting
Sign In or Register to comment.