Cisco Catalyst Express 500-24LC - What Is an Etherchannel

3-19
User Guide for the Catalyst Express 500 Switches
OL-8122-01
Chapter 3 Customization
Increase Connection Bandwidth through EtherChannels
What Is an EtherChannel
An EtherChannel (or port group) is a group of two or more Fast Ethernet or
Gigabit Ethernet switch ports bundled into a single logical link, creating a higher
bandwidth link between two switches. The switch supports up to six
EtherChannels.
Figure 3-9 shows two EtherChannels. Two full-duplex 10/100/1000-Mbps ports
on Switches A and C create an EtherChannel with a bandwidth of up to 4 Gbps
between both switches. Similarly, two full-duplex 10/100 ports on Switches B and
D create an EtherChannel with a bandwidth of up to 400 Mbps between both
switches.
If one of the ports in the EtherChannel becomes unavailable, traffic is carried over
to the remaining ports within the EtherChannel. Note how redundancy is
accomplished without EtherChannels in Figure 1-1 and Figure 3-6.
Figure 3-9 EtherChannels between Catalyst Express Switches