>Why would you want connect all four to the same switch? The switches are
>nowdays not that expensive ;-) Am I missing something here?
Primarily for reasons of bandwidth. Fast EtherChannel, for example, lets you
aggregate multiple Fast Ethernet links into "virtual" pipes. So to use Sun's
Quad Ethernet card as an example, you could have a 400Mbps pipe between your Sun
server and an upstream Cisco Catalyst switch. This might be helpful for DMZ
applications (e.g. front-end Web servers needing big bandwidth to back-end
databases, or perhaps for backup purposes, etc).
You also buy yourself a measure of redundancy, as FEC can survive the partial
loss of aggregated links. So for example, if you've got a four-link FEC and one
link disappears (cable cut, switch port failure, NIC failure) you will continue
to run in a diminished-bandwidth mode.
Regards,
Christopher Zarcone
Network Security Consultant
RPM Consulting
#include <std.disclaimer.h>
My opinions are completely my own and based on no useful knowledge whatsoever,
and in fact should not be considered by anyone.
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