[j-nsp] Using LACP/802.3ad between M20 and Cisco Cat6500

[Jared Mauch]

On Tue, Sep 28, 2004 at 02:31:51PM -0400, Rajeshbansal9 at aol.com wrote:
> Just FYI..this load balancing from the Cisco side doesn't work too well when 
> you have 3 or 5 ports. For 5 ports, you get a 2-2-2-1-1 distribution. I have 
<snip>

	Most of the hashing systems that are used in computer systems
are binary based.  This means they only work well with powers of two.

	This means:

	2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc..

	based on the patterns of traffic, you may see it work fine with
a 3, 5 or 6/7 port system.. but these are usually dependent on you having
a few large flows and a lot of smaller bursty ones that make it seem
like it's balancing better.  If you create a few single streams, you will
see your port balancing not work quite as well.

	The simple answer (as heard back during the mae gigaswitch days) is
to get bigger pipes or more ports.

	- Jared

-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from jared at puck.nether.net
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.