Link aggregation

In computer networking, the term link aggregation applies to various methods of combining (aggregating) multiple network connections in parallel in order to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide redundancy in case one of the links should fail.

Further umbrella terms used to describe the method include port trunking,[1]link bundling,[2] Ethernet/network/NIC bonding,[1] or NIC teaming. These umbrella terms encompass not only vendor-independent standards such as Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) for Ethernet defined in IEEE 802.1AX and IEEE 802.1aq or the previous IEEE 802.3ad, but also various proprietary solutions.

Network architects can implement aggregation at any of the lowest three layers of the OSI model.

·      Examples of aggregation at layer 1 (physical layer) include power line (e.g. IEEE 1901) and wireless (e.g. IEEE 802.11) network devices that combine multiple frequency bands.

·      OSI layer 2 (data link layer, e.g. Ethernet frame in LANs or multi-link PPP in WANs, Ethernet MAC address) aggregation typically occurs across switch ports, which can be either physical ports, or virtual ones managed by an operating system.

·      Aggregation at layer 3 (network layer) in the OSI model can use round-robin scheduling, hash values computed from fields in the packet header, or a combination of these two methods.

Regardless of the layer on which aggregation occurs, it balances the network load across all links. Most methods provide failover as well.

Combining can either occur such that multiple interfaces share one logical address (i.e. IP) or one physical address (i.e. MAC address), or it allows each interface to have its own address. The former requires that both ends of a link use the same aggregation method, but has performance advantages over the latter.