Etherchannel 2900xl vs. 2950

[wgmcmahon]

I want to configure Etherchannel between two switches for load balancing purposes and was curious on the differences between the 2900xl and the 2950. 

It seems on the 2900xl you assign interfaces to a port group, but on the 2950 you assign to the port channel and configure your port channel settings on the port channel interface - it seems (even after assigning interfaces to the port channel) on the 2900xl I can't enter the port channel configuration. 

Lastly, I'm not sure if you can even configure load balancing on the port channel on the 2900xl, I know on the 2950 you simple do port-channel load-balance ...

Anyone have any insight?  Am I barking up the wrong tree with the 2900xl?  Should I have two 2950s?

[Jon Marshall]

wgmcmahon wrote:
I want to configure Etherchannel between two switches for load balancing purposes and was curious on the differences between the 2900xl and the 2950.  
It seems on the 2900xl you assign interfaces to a port group, but on the 2950 you assign to the port channel and configure your port channel settings on the port channel interface - it seems (even after assigning interfaces to the port channel) on the 2900xl I can't enter the port channel configuration.  
Lastly, I'm not sure if you can even configure load balancing on the port channel on the 2900xl, I know on the 2950 you simple do port-channel load-balance ...
Anyone have any insight?  Am I barking up the wrong tree with the 2900xl?  Should I have two 2950s?

William

You are correct in that configuring etherchannel is different between the 2 switches. The 2950 uses the modern standard way of configuring etherchannel however the 2900XL uses an older method not much in use now. This doesn't mean you can't create an etherchannel though, it should still work.

The 2900XL doesn't support PaGP but again this is not a problem.

The 2900XL can load balance on soure and/or destination. To configure that under each interface you enter the port group command you can do -

int fa0/0

port group distribution

Jon