EtherChannels on FPR 1120 or 2120 towards core switch in HA

[inhamit]

Can we make Etherchannels to increase the bandwidth towards core switch from FPR 1120 or 2120? We have 1 GBPS ports only at firewall side and from the core switch to FPR, we required 2 GBPS speed to allow routing via firewall. The firewalls will be configured in HA mode.

[Rob Ingram]

@inhamit yes you can bundle 2-8 interfaces in an etherchannel.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/secure-firewall/management-center/device-config/720/management-center-device-config-72/interfaces-settings-ifcs-firewall.html#id_90517

[inhamit]

Can we configure FPR as NTP server? Firewall will get a NTP source from GPS clock server.

[Rob Ingram]

@inhamit you can configure the FTD to synchronise it's time from an NTP source, this could be the FMC or another NTP server.https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/security/secure-firewall/management-center/device-config/720/management-center-device-config-72/interfaces-settings-platform.html?bookSearch=true#task_9EE0ACB2B95B4D59892E2BCE2CACDC33

[Marius Gunnerud]

What are your expectations here?  Yes, you can bundle 1Gbps ports to help improve utilisation, but you will still be limited to 1 Gbps throughput.  Bundling two 1 Gbps ports does not mean you will now have 2Gbps throughput, it just means that you will have two 1 Gbps ports to send traffic over.

[inhamit]

I want to have 2 GBPS throughput to increase the bandwidth. If etherchannel will not work in this case to increase the bandwidth, what will be the ideal solution?

[Marius Gunnerud · Accepted solution]

If you want to increase your total bandwidth usage you will need to install at the very least FTD 1150 and then use the 10G SFP ports on it.  All the other FTDs in the 1000 series only support 1G SFP.