Diff between an EtherChannel and PortChanel

[brooklynheight]

Etherchannels can be used to add more bandwidth and loadbalancing between 2 switches. However, what is the diff. between that and a PortChannel. I noticed on Cisco. docs that Portchannels can be used for routing? However the port channel on my device has no ip address, but it is showing up up

Port-channel1 unassigned YES unset up up

Group: 1

----------

Group state = L2

Ports: 2 Maxports = 8

Port-channels: 1 Max Port-channels = 1

Protocol: -

Ports in the group:

-------------------

interface Port-channel1

switchport access vlan 50

switchport mode access

switchport nonegotiate

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/lan/catalyst3550/software/release/12.1_13_ea1/configuration/guide/swethchl.html#wp1105961

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

Hi

Etherchannel is the technology that allows grouping together more than one physical links to increase bandwidth. It creates a logical link that is seen by STP as one link rather than the separate physical links that make up the logical link.

A port-channel is just the logical link.

You can use port-channels at either L2 or L3.

If it is a L3 portchannel then it will have an IP address, if it is L2 then it won't.

The port-channel in your example above is a L2 port-channel.

HTH

Jon

[ankbhasi · Accepted solution]

Hi Leonardo,

Basically they are same. When you bind multiple physical ports together an interface which is created is port-channel which is actually termed as etherchannel.

So the logical port which get created is port-channel which is also called as etherchannel. There can be layer 2 ether channels a well as layer 3 etherchannels.

When you bind multiple layer 2 interfaces they are called as layer 2 etherchannels/portchannels as you have in your case. But if I just assign an ip address to your port channel it becomes layer 3 port channel.

HTH

Ankur

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[brooklynheight]

i appreciate the clarification