Link Aggregation is a mechanism to logically extend an Ethernet port across multiple physical ports used in parallel.
This implies that all control protocols (like Spanning Tree Protocol) will treat the multiple links as one link. Whenever a particular port (say an FE port) reaches its complete capacity, LAG can be used to logically increase the port capacity from 100Mbps to 200Mbps. This functionality greatly increases the scalability of Ethernet networks, since, without LAG, the only other option would have been to upgrade the port from a FE port to a Gig-E port. In the literal view of the network, LAG creates a loop by using two links between the same set of nodes, which otherwise would have been disabled by xSTP. However, running LAG ensures that the two ports are projected as 1 logical port to all control protocols.
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