Operation
The key to the operation of SMLT is the Inter-Switch Trunk (IST). The IST is a (standard) MLT connection between the aggregation switches which allows the exchange of information regarding traffic forwarding and the status of individual SMLT links.
For each SMLT connection, the aggregation switches have a standard MLT or individual port with which an SMLT identifier is associated. For a given SMLT connection, the same SMLT ID must be configured on each of the peer aggregation switches.
For example, when one switch receives a response to an ARP request from an end-station on a port that is part of an SMLT, it will inform its peer switch across the IST and request the peer to update its own ARP table with a record pointing to its own connection with the corresponding SMLT ID.
In general, normal network traffic does not traverse the IST unless this is the only path to reach a host which is connected only to the peer switch. By ensuring all devices have SMLT connections to the aggregation switches, traffic never needs to traverse the IST and the total forwarding capacity of the switches in the cluster is also aggregated.
The communication between peer switches across the IST allows both unicast and multicast routing information to be exchanged allowing protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Protocol Independent Multicast-Sparse Mode (PIM-SM) to operate correctly.
Read more about this topic: Split Multi-link Trunking
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