From the course: Deploying Layer 2 Switching for Cisco Networks by Pearson

Unlock this course with a free trial

Join today to access over 25,200 courses taught by industry experts.

Load-balancing traffic with EtherChannel bundles

Load-balancing traffic with EtherChannel bundles - Cisco Tutorial

From the course: Deploying Layer 2 Switching for Cisco Networks by Pearson

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Load-balancing traffic with EtherChannel bundles

“

So, I want to talk about how the traffic is forwarded across the EtherChannel bundle. So the first thing to note is we don't forward packets on a round-robin basis where packet 1 goes on link 1 and then packet 2 goes on link 2, packet 3 goes on link 3, and then packet 4 goes on link 4, and then we just recycle that phrase. What's going to actually happen is packets are going to be consistently forwarded across the link based on a calculated hash, which is going to run across various packet header fields. So this again is why we want to keep it into powers of 2, the 1, 2, 4, 8, etc. for the number of interfaces that you're going to be using. Now the load balancing hash is going to be system-wide and you can change that with the command of port channel, the load balance, and then the hash. Now the hash type is going to vary depending upon what you actually want to accomplish. Now if the links are evenly distributed, you're in good shape. If they're unevenly distributed, then the hash…

Contents