Link Aggregation

EtherChannel is a technology for link aggregation (or port bundling) on switches, routers, and servers. It allows multiple physical Ethernet ports/links to be combined into a single logical link, which provides fault tolerance and increases speed (load balancing). EtherChannel can be configured manually or by using Cisco's proprietary Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) or the standardized Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). This technology is used between switches, but it can also be used for server connections, here referred to as NIC Teaming or Bonding.

Today we have many situations where we use the possibility to connect a server with multiple network cards to the same network. The two main benefits are increased throughput and server availability. We will use this both for important traditional servers and for the nowadays more and more widespread servers where we run virtualization. This technique is mostly referred to as NIC Teaming, Bonding or Link Bundling and can also use standard Link Aggregation methods.

Another article that focuses on NIC Teaming and Link Aggregation. When we consolidate multiple servers onto a single physical HW (because the performance of the CPU, memory and other components is quite sufficient), it is very useful to increase the security and throughput of the network connection by connecting through multiple network interfaces. I consider VMware ESX to be the best visualization platform today, where the ESXi version is even free, so I'm committed to it.

Demands on the data throughput of computer network links are increasing. Today's network cards offer a speed of 1Gbps and the speed of ports on switches corresponds to this. But often we need to aggregate multiple such lines and connect to another device. For example uplink port of a switch or consolidation of multiple servers to one HW (virtualization).