Link aggregation allows the switch to treat multiple physical links between two end-points as a single logical link. All the physical links in a given LAG must operate in full-duplex mode at the same speed. LAGs can be used to directly connect two switches when the traffic between them requires high bandwidth and reliability, or to provide a higher-bandwidth connection to a public network. Management functions treat a LAG as if it were a single physical port. You can include a LAG in a VLAN. You can configure more than one LAG for a given switch.

LAGs offers the following benefits:

• Increased reliability and availability. If one of the physical links in the LAG goes down, traffic is dynamically and transparently reassigned to one of the other physical links.
• Better use of physical resources. Traffic can be load-balanced across the physical links.
• Increased bandwidth. The aggregated physical links deliver higher bandwidth than each individual link.
• Incremental increase in bandwidth. A physical upgrade could produce a tenfold increase in bandwidth; LAG produces a two- or fivefold increase, useful if only a small increase is needed.

This article applies to the following managed switches and their respective firmware:

• M5300 - firmware version 10.0.0.x
• • M5300-28G (GSM7228S)
  • M5300-5G (GSM7252S)
  • M5300-28G3 (GSM7328Sv2h2)
  • M5300-52G3 (GSM7352Sv2h2)
  • M5300-28G_POE+ (GSM7228PSv1h2)
  • M5300-52G-POE+ (GSM7252PSv1h2)
  • M5300-28GF3 (GSM7328FSv2)
• M4100 - firmware version 10.0.1.x
• • M4100-26G (GSM7224v2h2)
  • M4100-50G (GSM7248v2h2)
  • M4100-26G-POE (GSM7226Pv1h1)
  • M4100-50G-POE+ (GSM7248Pv1h1)
  • M4100-26G-POE (FSM7226Pv1h1)
  • M4100-50-POE (FSM7250Pv1h1)
  • M4100-D12G (GSM5212v1h1)
  • M4100-D10-POE (FSM5210Pv1h1)
• M7100 - firmware version 10.0.1.x
• • M7100-24X (XSM7224)
  •