Administrator Guide

The following example shows VLT deployed on switches. The switches appear as a single virtual switch from the point of view
of the switch or server supporting link aggregation control protocol (LACP).
Figure 113. VLT on Switches
VLT on Core Switches
You can also deploy VLT on core switches.
Uplinks from servers to the access layer and from access layer to the aggregation layer are bundled in LAG groups with
end-to-end Layer 2 multipathing. This set up requires “horizontal” stacking at the access layer and VLT at the aggregation layer
such that all the uplinks from servers to access and access to aggregation are in Active-Active Load Sharing mode. This example
provides the highest form of resiliency, scaling, and load balancing in data center switching networks.
The following example shows stacking at the access, VLT in aggregation, and Layer 3 at the core.
The aggregation layer is mostly in the L2/L3 switching/routing layer. For better resiliency in the aggregation, Dell Networking
recommends running the internal gateway protocol (IGP) on the VLTi VLAN to synchronize the L3 routing table across the two
nodes on a VLT system.
Enhanced VLT
An enhanced VLT (eVLT) configuration creates a port channel between two VLT domains by allowing two different VLT
domains, using different VLT domain ID numbers, connected by a standard link aggregation control protocol (LACP) LAG to
form a loop-free Layer 2 topology in the aggregation layer.
This configuration supports a maximum of four units, increasing the number of available ports and allowing for dual redundancy
of the VLT. The following example shows how the core/aggregation port density in the Layer 2 topology is increased using
eVLT. For inter-VLAN routing and other Layer 3 routing, you need a separate Layer 3 router.
Virtual Link Trunking (VLT)
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