Failure Scenarios
The use of SMLT not only allows traffic to be load-balanced across all the links in an aggregation group but also allows traffic to be redistributed very quickly in the event of link or switch failure. In general the failure of any one component results in a traffic disruption lasting less than half a second (normal less than 100 millisecond) making SMLT appropriate in environments running time- and loss-sensitive applications such as voice and video.
In a network utilising SMLT, it is often no longer necessary to run a spanning tree protocol of any kind since there are no logical bridging loops introduced by the presence of the IST. This eliminates the need for spanning tree reconvergence or root-bridge failovers in failure scenarios which causes interruptions in network traffic longer than time-sensitive applications are able to cater for.
Read more about this topic: Split Multi-link Trunking
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
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