This chapter contains a complete sample Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) configuration (L3 LAG).

Link Aggregation is the method of combining individual physical network interfaces or ports to increase the capacity of the link to support and sustain beyond the individual port capability. Features like Spanning Tree, VLAN, FDB, Multicast operate on both physical ports as well as Link Aggregated Logical Ports. It bundles all of the controller’s distribution system ports into a single 802.3ad port channel, thereby reducing the number of IP addresses needed to configure the ports on your controller. When LAG is enabled, the system dynamically manages port redundancy and load balances access points transparently to the user.

LACP is based on the 802.3ad IEEE specification. It allows bundling of several physical interfaces to form a single logical channel providing enhanced performance and redundancy. The aggregated interface is viewed as a single link to each switch. The spanning tree views it as one interface and not as two or three interfaces. When there is a failure in one physical interface, the other interfaces stay up and there is no disruption.

The OcNOS LACP implementation supports the aggregation of a maximum of six physical Ethernet links into a single logical channel.

In this example, 3 links are configured between the two switches R1 and R2. These three links are assigned the same administrative key (1) so that they aggregate to form a single channel 1. They are viewed by STP as one interface.