port aggregation VS uplinks

[inamprix1]

I was reading campus design guide and comparing the interconnect of switches and came with this question:

When we have two or three tier design for campas lan where we have Access, Distribution and and core layers. How to interconnect the layers with each other:

• Using uplinks available on the switch ? or
• Using Port aggregation protocols and use the available regular ports on the switches to uplink to other layers?

Thanks

[Joseph W. Doherty]

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Posting

BTW, uplink ports also often support port aggregation, so that alone isn't always the decider.

It depends whether uplink ports are "special", and if they are, do you need the "special".

For example, on the 3750 series, the uplink ports are often modular transceiver ports, so if you need a fiber connection, you'll need to use one.  However, also on the 3750 series, each bank of 24 copper ports has 2 MB of RAM, but so do the uplink ports.  So, for a very busy copper port, an uplink port might be a better choice with a copper transceiver module vs. an ordinary copper edge port.