the difference between load balancing and load sharing on Cisco Switches?

thedramathedrama Member Posts: 291 ■□□□□□□□□□
in CCNP
Regarding advanced Spanning-Tree modes like PVRST+ , i need to learn the difference between these two. It'd be better if you show me via example.

Thanks in advance
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  • SteveO86SteveO86 Member Posts: 1,423
    Load Balances refers to sharing the load equally over multiple paths.

    Where as load sharing, involves simply sharing the load over multiple not necessarily in an equal.

    With Cisco boxes, by default CEF by default moves data on a per flow basis and does not take into account the size of each flow.

    In regards to MSTP (or PVST+ I suppose) proper designs have the root bridge for one VLAN on switch and the root switch for another VLAN on a second switch. This would be load sharing not load balancing since Spanning-Tree has no way of looking at the amount of traffic passing and switching the root bridge to balance the load.
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  • thedramathedrama Member Posts: 291 ■□□□□□□□□□
    Thank you for it.

    However, if there are two Cisco switches connected to each other with two parallel links? is it load balancing, load sharing?
    Monster PC specs(Packard Bell VR46) : Intel Celeron Dual-Core 1.2 GHz CPU , 4096 MB DDR3 RAM, Intel Media Graphics (R) 4 Family with IntelGMA 4500 M HD graphics. :lol:

    5 year-old laptop PC specs(Toshiba Satellite A210) : AMD Athlon 64 x2 1.9 GHz CPU, ATI Radeon X1200 128 MB Video Memory graphics card, 3072 MB 667 Mhz DDR2 RAM. (1 stick 2 gigabytes and 1 stick 1 gigabytes)


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  • networker050184networker050184 Mod Posts: 11,962 Mod
    Depends on how its set up.
    An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made.
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