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| Merlink |
| Link Aggregation
Framework & LACP / 802.3ad |
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Merlink, a member of the Switchcraft family of layer 2
protocol products, is a high performance implementation of
managed link aggregation for embedded switching
implementations in networking and industrial equipment. It
enables multiple links to be aggregated together to form a
link aggregation group that a MAC client can treat as a
single higher-speed link ("fat pipe") with built-in fault
tolerance. Merlink also enables aggregates to use custom
distribution functions for load balancing and other
application-specific features, including designating
certain ports as fail-over ports. For automated management
of aggregated links in highly interoperable manner,
Merlink includes support for the IEEE 802.3ad Link
Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) and the Marker
protocol.
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Merlink is a robust, lean, high performance implementation of
managed link aggregation for embedded systems,
including interoperable implementations of the IEEE
802.3ad standard : Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
and Marker Protocol.
Merlink enables multiple links to be aggregated together
to form a link aggregation group that a MAC client can
treat as a single link. Aggregation of links into a link
aggregation group results in not only in increased
bandwidth but also increased availability because the
failure of a single constituent link does not cause a
failure from the perspective of the MAC client. In the
event of a link failure, Merlink redistributes traffic
from the failed link(s) to the other links in the group.
When multiple active links exist in an aggregate group,
Merlink also balances the load across different active
links in an aggregate group, with support for
customizable load-balancing algorithms which can handle
also links of varying bandwidth. The fully customizable
distribution function may be sequential or conversation
based allowing packet sequences in each conversation to
be maintained even on aggregated links.
Merlink's link aggregation groups may also be configured
so that regular "active" links can co-exist with a set
of links in the same group which are marked as
"fail-over" links and do not participate actively in the
aggregation until a failure condition occurs. In the
event of a link failure, the pre-assigned fail-over
links could take over the responsibility of the failed
links maintaining a uniform throughput. |
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Features |
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Link Aggregation for increased bandwidth. |
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Customizable load balancing between different
links in an aggregate. |
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Fault-tolerance via fail-over capability. |
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Support for automated aggregation via 802.3ad
LACP protocol. |
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Specific ports can be LACP-enabled or disabled. |
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Support for passive and active mode LACP. |
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Handles heterogeneous links of different
physical types and bandwidths. |
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Includes Marker Protocol implementation. |
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Supports custom event hooks
detection. |
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Support for CPU types of either
endian-ness including PowerPC, MIPS, X86, ARM/XScale. |
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Merlink’s tiny footprint and configurable
modules have been specifically designed for use in an embedded
environment. It scales up from basic manual trunking to advanced
automated aggregate management. With validated protocol
compliance and interoperability with popular switch
implementations, Merlink is the optimal solution for
high-bandwidth and fault-tolerant applications. |
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Merlink, like other members of the
Switchcraft family, has been extensively validated on a variety of CPU
architectures, which minimizes development and integration
efforts. Merlink supports a
variety of switch fabric chipsets and provides a standard
reference implementation to glue in a custom switch chip. It
enables highly sophisticated management of link aggregation
groups in networked embedded systems with the fewest changes to
the application and driver code. |
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Special Features |
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Provides a
full-featured link aggregation / trunking framework with
flexible APIs |
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Provides all
benefits of link aggregation - higher throughput, higher
availability and load balancing/distibution |
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Full
implementation of IEEE 802.3ad including Marker protocol
and full LACP features (passive and active) |
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Includes
Marker generator and responder implementations |
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Aggregates
links with different speeds (bandwidth) too |
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