10Gig E Aggregated ports?

[Rich Rubasch]

Found this on a Netgear document:

10 Gigabit Ethernet provides greater scalability than multiple Gigabit Ethernet links, resulting in a more futureproof network. Up to eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet links can be aggregated into a virtual 80-Gbps connection.

So unlike Gigabit Ethernet aggregating might in fact double the effective bandwidth per computer.

In their example they actually use two switches and run one cable to switch 1 and the other cable to switch 2. The QNAP would be connected in a similar way. 10Gig 1 goes to switch 1 and 10Gig 2 goes to switch 2. This is effectively doubling the speed because you have two unique 10Gig connections thru two unique switches which takes advantage of both 10Gig ports on both ends.

Definitely liking this concept!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Bob Zelin]

if you LACP the 2 QNAP ports to 2 of the ports on the Netgear switch (LACP 802.3ad), you get 20 Gb/sec instead of 10Gb/sec. This increases your total aggregate bandwidth from server to switch.

This however does not work for client to switch. If you create the LAG, you only get redundancy, not greater bandwidth.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Rich Rubasch]

The actual setup is TWO switches. One port of the QNAP goes to switch one. The other port goes to the other switch. The Mac has two 10gig e ports….one goes to switch one and one goes to switch two. When you configure the two switches you do so as if it was one switch….Netgear and Cisco both allow for this….and 10Gig e supports up to 8 switches with eight 10gig e cables effectively providing double current Thunderbolt 3 speeds or 80 gbps..

Sonnet makes both a Thunderbolt 2 and 3 dual 10gig e device and both support aggregation.

Fun with 10gig e!

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Bob Zelin]

perhaps I am missing something. Small Netgear 10G switches – everything from the XS708T to the XS748T do not support stacking. When you have a switch that supports stacking, you can combine switches so they act like one switch.

These are Netgear stacking switches, where you can run cables from switch to switch to get them to act like a single switch.
https://www.netgear.com/business/products/switches/managed/m4300.aspx

Unless I am missing something here, you cant take two Netgear 8 port XS708T’s, and “combine them”. If you loop them, the second switch will have less bandwidth. I have done this in situations where clients simply refuse to purchase a larger switch due to expense. So I stick the producers stations on the “looped” switch.

If you have a QNAP for example, with a dual port 10G card (like a TVS-1282T for example), and put one 10G port into one switch and the other 10G port into another switch, then the clients on each switch have to connect to the IP address of that 10G port on the QNAP. If you trunk (LAG) the two QNAP ports in the QNAP Network menu, and you have not created a LAG on the switch (specifically an IEEE 802.3ad LACP LAG), you don’t get greater bandwidth.

Like I said, perhaps I am missing something here – or perhaps you could put up the link to the Netgear document that you are referring to.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Rich Rubasch]

Here is a Netgear white paper link and it has a pretty good explanation with drawings.

https://wiki.networksecuritytoolkit.org/images/NETGEAR_Whitepaper_10_Gigabit.pdf

Can’t find the link to the Cisco white paper…it’s on my computer at work.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Bob Zelin]

oh, this is SO exhausting –

ok, lets go to your Netgear document –
https://wiki.networksecuritytoolkit.org/images/NETGEAR_Whitepaper_10_Gigabit.pdf

Figure 2 shows two STACKED Netgear switches. You just don’t take two XS708T or XS712T switches, and run a cable between them, and they act like one switch. These are STACKED (which are only specific models of switches from
Netgear, Cisco, Extreme, Arista, etc.) So when you STACK the switches, now you can run out the two ports on the QNAP (or any shared storage system) and create the LAG.

from Figure 2 explanation –
“it is far easier to implement a distributed LACP solution with stackable switches that allow link aggregation across the
stack. In this configuration, the stack acts as a single logical switch and link aggregation is seamless.”

No stack – no LACP, no increase of bandwidth.

Figure 3 ALSO shows STACKABLE Netgear switches.

And from Figure 4 –
“LACP active-active teaming is distributed across four
stacked switches, delivering excellent resiliency and availability while providing a connection to the same logical switch”

So to stress one more time – just because you have 2 or more cheap 10G switches, does not mean that you get to split the load between the 2 switches with a cross connection cable between the two. The switches MUST support stacking, so they appear as a single switch.

While running up to eight cables from switch to switch can create an 80 Gb/sec bandwidth – that’s just between the 2 switches that you are doing this to. You now have to create the LACP LAG between your server (the QNAP or other server) and your switch. So if you have FOUR stacked switches, and you have FOUR 10G ports in your QNAP, you can run one 10G port on the QNAP to each of the four STACKED switches, and then get 40 Gb/sec bandwidth from the server to the switches. But this only works if you have stackable switches – and none of the low end Netgear or QNAP or Buffalo or DLink 10G switches are stackable.

Use an M4300 series (which is $4000 empty – you now add the ports) and yes, you can accomplish what you are describing.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Rich Rubasch]

Hmmm…so that’s why they didn’t show prices for the switches. Still the idea was intriguing especially for a 4-6 workstation setup and two QNAP NAS boxes and two of the stackable switches with two 10gig e ports on each computer.

Prices will come down, like it did on my HP aggregated gigabit switch several years ago…guess the waiting begins.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Bob Zelin]

you have 6 workstations
you have 2 QNAP systems each with 2 10G ports –

this is the XS716T from Netgear. It’s 16 ports – and it costs $1142, and supports IEEE 802.3ad.

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-16-Port-16x10GBASE-T-Lifetime-Protection/dp/B01ELW0QY2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=xs716t&qid=1563921347&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Is that a lot of money ? How much do you want to pay for a 16 port 10G switch that is managed, and supports LACP ?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com