Link Aggregation and EtherChannel discovery
IP 9.1 has
been enhanced with functionality to manage link aggregation, which
is recognized by industry as Etherchannel or Portchannel. This means
that IP server recognizes multiple connections between two devices
as a single consolidated connection.
Link Aggregation allows
one or more ports to be aggregated together to form a Link Aggregation
Group (LAG), such that a MAC Client can treat the Link Aggregation
Group as if it were a single link.
Link Aggregation
Group (LAG) discovery is supported on Cisco Nexus 5000 switches through
CLI discovery. LAG can be formed using LACP / PAGP (Cisco proprietary)
signalling protocol. Both LACP and PAGP protocols are supported by
IP.
This feature allows:
- Detection of failure of logical groups. When there is a signal failure or a failure in all of the discrete connections, then a singleDownproblem is reported on the LAG.
- Discovery of peer port connectivity and Logical Group connectivity in Cisco devices.This is true even when the neighbor discovery protocol is not enabled.
- Detection of traffic load imbalance among ports that participate in an aggregation. Generates the eventUnbalancedAdapterUtilizationfor AggregatePort when traffic load is relatively imbalanced.
- Chapter 1 in provides more information on how the this event is calculated.