Do you need more bandwidth on your network devices but don't have the bigger
bandwidth interfaces on your actual network equipment that you can use?
Watch this video to learn all about ether channels and link aggregation (it's
basically the same thing) and how they can be used to expand your bandwidth
immensely and make your network humm. For the best startup and newbie networking
concepts ever taught subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified
when I post a new video twice a week. If you don't understand ether channels
and/or link aggregations on networking devices and why they're used and needed
by the end of this video you'll have a complete understanding and knowledge of
them and you can be the go-to expert that's there when others are asking for
help from YOU. I shared this information about ether channels with one of my past
clients and they were able to save their company twenty thousand dollars in new
equipment purchases by just utilizing the networking equipment and components
they already had and that they were already using. So first of all
understanding ether channels or link aggregations they're sometimes called
depending on the manufacturer of the devices that you're dealing with and and
the company that you're working for (they may be called ether channels they may be
called link aggregations but) understanding them requires you to think
of a computer network like a sophisticated plumbing or looking
at city traffic from like 5,000 feet up. What do I mean by that? If you look at
the flow of data on a network like water in pipes or like cars on roads and
highways in a city you can easily see why link aggregations or ether channels
are used and needed. So that's the first concept you need to look at to
understand them. Think of a network like a set of pipes in plumbing or like a
bunch of streets or highways in a city. Secondly if you have network equipment
(switches, routers, etc.) that only have certain speeds and bandwidths on their
physical interfaces - in other words they can only go at a certain speed on each
interface - but you need more bandwidth on certain connections say between a switch
and another switch or between two network devices... You need more bandwidth
on those connections to keep the data and the traffic from actually doing what
they call bottlenecking which is the same as if you're dealing with traffic.
If traffic all bottlenecks and I'll say a construction zone is all
bottlenecked down to one single lane, it almost comes to a complete stop until
all of that traffic can filter through one lane of traffic so you don't want
bottle necking so you may want to increase the bandwidth on certain
connections to keep that bottlenecking from happening
you can aggregate or either channel multiple physical interfaces together
into a "bigger" and I'm gonna put that in quotes a "bigger" interface or pipe if you
look at it like plumbing by grouping them together into either channels or
link aggregations. Comment below if you've ever encountered a question or
questions on a certification exam about either channels or link aggregations or
if you've actually worked with either channel configurations personally. If
you think of networking like sophisticated plumbing (like I was
talking about second ago) you can logically configure multiple interfaces
on two network devices into an ether channel or link aggregation to allow
them to work like a larger pipe on your network and allow more bandwidth usage
or flow across that connection. And if you think of network traffic like
traffic in a city, think of ether channels or link aggregations kind of
like adding more lanes to a freeway or you're actually creating a freeway with
multiple lanes by creating an ether channel or a link aggregation. Each
physical interface in that ether channel is like a single lane on that freeway
but the freeway has multiple lanes. So the lanes are the physical interfaces in
the ether channel that you configure on each device facing each other and the
ether channel is like the freeway itself. Network devices will use one of those
lanes or one of those connections if you're using network cabling typically
that's the case you're they're gonna use one network cable in that ether channel
primarily until more traffic flow is necessary or more bandwidth is needed.
Then they will start using the other lanes or the interfaces or the cables in
between to provide more bandwidth. Now keep in mind that the ether channel is
considered a LOGICAL interface and is only seen by the configured devices
using them as a single BIG interface containing multiple physical interfaces
configured into it. Not multiple physical connections that are actually seen when
you physically look at a networking device. Like let's say you have five
cables running between two switches...on both of those switches
you configure those five interfaces into the same ether channel on both. The
switches see them as one single big ether channel interface. They don't see
them as five separate connections anymore so that's kind of how you want
to look at that when it comes to networking. You know exactly how
either channels link aggregations work, why they're needed, but what about when
you get some tricky questions on the certification exams about them? I've put
together a series of videos that go further in depth about ether channels
and link aggregation and how to use and tweak them on a computer network from
planning them to using them. Also if you want to join a community of networkers
just like you that are learning about the technologies and getting started I
have a "Secret Society" where I have up-to-date networking know-how to help you
navigate and get started right down this sometimes tricky career or business path
in life. If you like this video please let me know by liking it below, subscribe
and share it with your fellow newbie networkers and comment below with
"Helpful" if this video helped you!