topic RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing in ExtremeSwitching (Other)

L2 or L3 Load Sharing

Prinfo — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 22:14:00 GMT

Hi!

Is there anyone who can explain a bit about the differences between layer 2 and layer 3 load sharing?

Why would I choose layer 2 before layer 3 for example?

If there's only multicast on the ports, would it be better to use layer 3?

Any information is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

PARTHIBAN_CHINN — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:10:00 GMT

Layer 2 will consider only Mac address for hashing
L3 considers Ip .... If it is multicast with different IP subnets l3 should be good

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

Paul11 — Mon, 08 Dec 2014 23:10:00 GMT

Hi PARTHIBAN,

Is it Multicast traffic will load shared in a lag???

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

rbrt — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:50:00 GMT

Additionally, when using L3 routing algorithms you can benefit of "equal cost load balancing", which actually distributes traffic based on link load.

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

Paul11 — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:50:00 GMT

Hi Robert,

Could you explain more about L3 routing protocol to "equal path load balancing" for traffic to distributes the load on links. Thanks.

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

rbrt — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:50:00 GMT

Hi Paul,
Just ask Google about it. For example, it leads to this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-cost_multi-path_routing
The common routing protocol to use in a LAN is OSPF by the way. Again, Google knows a lot about it.

RE: L2 or L3 Load Sharing

Paul11 — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 00:50:00 GMT

Thanks anyway Robert, Here i am in the HUB.