Link Aggregation
To fill the gap between our 1 and 10 Gbit/sec port offerings, AMS-IX also offers aggregated Gigabit Ethernet ports. To fill the gap between 10 Gbit/sec and 100 Gbit/sec Ethernet ports, AMS-IX also offers aggregated 10GigabitEthernet ports.
This technique allows for the bundling of two or more (10)Gigabit Ethernet links into one virtual channel towards the shared fabric, negating the need for additional routers. Link aggregation is also known as EtherChannel, Port Channel, Port aggregation or trunking, depending on the vendor involved. The IEEE 802.3ad or LACP specifications is applicable.
Pricing and Availability
AMS-IX currently offers the option of aggregated Gigabit Ethernet and 10Gigabit Ethernet links. No other media types are available for aggregation. The port prices for aggregated links are identical to the normal port prices.
Due to technical limitations of the switches used by AMS-IX it may be necessary to relocate your existing port. If this turns out to be the case, AMS-IX will inform you and advise you of any additional steps necessary for this process.
AMS-IX can deliver aggregated links at all co-locations.
Although a strict reading of the spec forbids it, we can offer aggregated links over different media types of the same speed (1000baseSX and 1000baseLX; or 10GE-LR and 10GE-ER). Aggregating links acquired from different partners or resellers, however, is not supported.
Load-Balancing Algorithm for the BigIron RX and NetIron MLX platforms
The load-balancing algorithms used in our NetIron MLX switches uses a modulo operation, leading to the best distribution over links with the entropy available in source and destination IPv4 or IPv6 address, TCP or UDP source and destination port number, as applicable.
LACP & AMS-IX Topology
LACP is supported at AMS-IX for all connection types. When used with 10Gbit/s links use of LACP does introduce an inconvenient side effect. After a topology failover ports with LACP enabled will stay in blocking mode until the first LACP frame is received. Because this may take several tens of second (depending on vendor implementation) this can cause BGP sessions to flap.
When enabling LACP we advise to configure the LACP timeout to "Short", to limit the maximum failover time to 30 seconds.
Configuration Hints
We have collected information about link aggregation for several router platforms information about link aggregation for several router platforms.