trunk required for switch <-> communication?

[Ben LeMasurier]

Hey everyone,

I've got trunks setup for my ProCurve<->ProCurve links however, I'm wondering if I need to create one from ProCurve<->SMC TigerSwitch

Since the SMC switch can't create a static trunk like the PowerEdge can, do I just create a trunk on the ProCurve?

Thanks!

Ben

[Mohammed Faiz]

Does the SMC support LACP? If so you could try creating an LACP trunk instead.

[Ben LeMasurier]

It sure does :) However, I'm a bit confused after my last post regarding LACP/Static trunks.

Hardware capabilities aside, when is it appropriate to use LACP instead of static trunks? Does a static trunk have performance or other benefits?

Thanks again!

Ben

[Mohammed Faiz · Accepted solution]

Well for me the advantage of enabling LACP on certain switches was to allow the Server admins to just plug in multiple links for servers and have the trunks form dynamically.
I prefer static links when the configuration is just that, i.e. static, such as a switch-switch trunk.

Other advantages of LACP (shamelessly stolen from wikipedia :D )

# Failover when a link fails and there is (for example) a Media Converter between the devices which means that the peer will not see the link down. With static link aggregation the peer would continue sending traffic down the link causing it to be lost.

# The device can confirm that the configuration at the other end can handle link aggregation. With Static link aggregation a cabling or configuration mistake could go undetected and cause undesirable network behavior.