Communication aggregation with 802.3AD
Although it is difficult to believe, the bandwidth of 1Gbps is insufficient for many network connections between the LAN switches and from the switch to the high demand service. In addition to ISP, application service providers, streaming media providers, traditional enterprise network administrators also feel the bandwidth pressure on their own server. Standard-based link aggregation technologies for LAN switches and high-end server network cards will help users reduce this pressure. The 802.3AD standards formulated in 1999 define how to combine more than two Gigabit Ethernet connections to achieve load sharing, load balancing, and provide better elasticity. This is not a new concept, many manufacturers have supported a dedicated "trunking" technology for 10 / 100Mbps Ethernet and FDDI. The uniqueness of this standard is that standardization implementation link aggregates, 802.3ad means a dedicated technology for combining multiple low-speed ports to form a faster point-to-point logical link. Cisco's dedicated Inter-Switch Link trunk technology (switch interconnected link, ISL) and Adaptec Duralink port aggregate software is just two technologies in popular polymerization technology supported by many switches and NIC manufacturers. The basic problems of this type of technology and the reason why we are now using 802.3ad is that they are only designed for single brand network equipment. This means a lot of trouble for network administrators who need a "aggregated" link that requires a faster network, but wants to use different brands. As switches and network card vendors began to launch products that support 802.3ad, you will see more compatibility in different network cards and switches, and will see some other important benefits. First, this standard is suitable for 10M, 100M, and 1000Mbps Ethernet. The link together can use the above-described transmission speed on a single logical link, so that the user has a gigabit port between the switches and 3 or 4 100 Mbps ports, which can be burden The way to get the bandwidth. Since the network transport stream is dynamically distributed to each port, the management of data that actually flows through a port is automatically completed in the aggregation link. As the network bandwidth demand continues to grow, scalability is crucial. Obviously, it is a good thing for the backbone lines that can benefit from the addition of more Gigabit throughput. We should not neglect the link aggregation of the server, and the high-performance server now supports network I / O networks within a Gigabit. The server not only sends and receives such huge amounts of data, but also many of the server has the remaining CPU cycle to complete some applications. In the case where the server function becomes stronger, the network throughput demand becomes larger, the link aggregation has left the extension, up to 8Gbps full-duplex transmission. Another major advantage of 802.3ad is reliability. The link failure will be a disaster in the case where the link speed can reach 8Gbps. Key Task Switch links and server connections must be both powerful and trustworthy. Even if a cable is incorrect, they will not be paralyzed, which is the interesting attached benefit of 802.3ad. This link aggregation standard provides inherent, automatic redundancy on the point-to-point link. In other words, if a port in the plurality of ports used in the links are failed, the network transport stream can dynamically change the ports of the linked normal state. This reigning speed is very fast, and when the switch knows that the media access control address has been automatically reassigned from one link port to another port in the same link, it is triggered. The switch then sends the data to the new port position and the network continues to run with almost uninterrupted. There are still not many products that actually support 802.3ad, so there is still not much to expect too much. However, in the next few months, many manufacturers will introduce products that support link aggregation technology. This is exactly what many network managers want to have in their own network.
