User Documentation

User Manual Managed Switches
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3.2 Using Port Trunking
Port Trunking is only available for Weidmüller Premium Line
managed switches.
Link Aggregation allows one or more links to be aggregated together to form a Link Aggregation
Group. A MAC client can treat Link Aggregation Groups as if they were a single link.
The Weidmüller switch's Port Trunking feature allows devices to communicate by aggregating up to 4
trunk groups, with a maximum of 8 ports for each group. If one of the 8 ports fails, the other seven
ports will provide back up and share the traffic automatically.
Port Trunking can be used to combine up to 8 ports between two Weidmüller switches. If all ports on
both switch units are configured as 100BaseTX and they are operating in full duplex, the potential
bandwidth of the connection will be 1600 Mbps.
The Port Trunking Concept
The Port Trunking protocol provides the following benefits:
 Gives you more flexibility in setting up your network connections, since the bandwidth of a
link can be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled.
 Provides redundancy—if one link is broken, the remaining trunked ports share the traffic
within this trunk group.
 Load sharing—MAC Client traffic may be distributed across multiple links.
To avoid broadcast storms or loops in your network while configuring a trunk, first disable or
disconnect all ports that you want to add to the trunk or remove from the trunk. After you finish
configuring the trunk, enable or re-connect the ports.
If all ports on both switch units are configured as 100BaseTX and they are operating in full duplex,
the potential bandwidth of the connection will be up to 1.6 Gbps on the Weidmüller switch. This
means that users can connect one Weidmüller switch to another Weidmüller switch by Port Trunking
to double, triple, or quadruple the bandwidth of the connection.
Important note about Port Trunking:
Each Premium Line Weidmüller switch can set a maximum of 4 Port Trunking groups
(Trk1/Trk2/Trk3/Trk4). When you activate Port Trunking, certain settings related to the trunking ports
will be reset to factory default values, or disabled:
 Communication Redundancy will be reset
 Traffic Prioritization will be reset
 Port-based VLAN or 802.1Q VLAN will be reset
 Multicast Filtering will be reset
 Port Lock will be reset and disabled
 Set Device IP will be reset
 Mirror Port will be reset