channel group question

[gavinr98]

Hello, I have a question on channel groups. We currently have 2 channel groups on a cluster, each going to 2 different switches (different floors so we only have the 2 cable runs to each location). We are replacing both the switches, however we want to have the other switches online and working before we cut over to the new switches. We have 2 10GB SFP's on each switch and I was wondering if it was possible to just create a new channel group, remove 1 of the SFP's from each switch and then add them to the new switches, with each channel group having only the 1 port. Is this possible or do you have to have a minimum of 2 ports in a channel group? I don't want to remove the port from the group if it is going to cause any issues.

Thanks,

Gavin

[GregH.NY · Accepted solution]

Hello. You can have just one connection within a channel-group. When you think about it this is one of the things a channel-group is for Redundancy. I hope this helps.

[luis_cordova · Accepted solution]

Hi @gavinr98 ,

Is this possible or do you have to have a minimum of 2 ports in a channel group?

The function of a channel-group is to be able to join more than one link to increase the bandwidth, but, yes, you can have only one port per channel-group.

Regards

[gavinr98]

Thank you both, just wanted to make sure as I did not want to have any issues when removing the port from the channel group.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

As the other have already noted, yes you can have a single link (which as also noted, is what you're left with in a dual link situation when one link fails).

BTW, I've switched dual independent link to/from Etherchannel, by having at least one independent or one Etherchannel link active. What you're doing, is similar. One thing to keep in mind, STP "hits" when making these kind of changes. With a rapid-STP variant "hits" are of minimal duration. Best, though, to make changes during a maintenance window. (In my case, I was making changes to devices thousands of miles away, so couldn't totally lose on-net access to device.)