E4G-400 Combination Ports

The E4G-400 cell site aggregation router provides four uplink ports implemented as combination ports that pair a copper port using RJ-45 connectors with an optical port using LC connectors.

The copper port operates as an autonegotiating 10/100/1000BASE-T port. The optical port allows Gigabit Ethernet uplink connections through Extreme Networks small form factor pluggable (SFP) interface modules.

The E4G-400 router supports automatic failover from an active fiber port to a copper backup or from an active copper port to a fiber port. If one of the uplink connections fails, the uplink connection automatically fails over to the second connection. To set up a redundant link on a combination port, connect the active 1000BASE-T and fiber links to both the RJ-45 and SFP interfaces of that port.

Gigabit Ethernet uplink redundancy on the E4G-400 router follows these rules:

With both the SFP and 1000BASE-T interfaces connected on a combination port, only one interface can be activated. The other is inactive.
If only one interface is connected, the router activates the connected interface.
The router determines whether the port uses the fiber or copper connection based on the order in which the connectors are inserted into the router. When the router senses that an SFP and a copper connector are inserted, the router enables the uplink redundancy feature. For example, if you first connect copper ports 21 and 22, and then insert SFPs into optical ports 21 and 22, the router assigns the copper ports as active ports and the fiber ports as redundant ports.

Hardware identifies when a link is lost and responds by swapping the primary and redundant ports to maintain stability. After a failover occurs, the router keeps the current port assignment until another failure occurs or a user changes the assignment using the CLI. For more information about configuring automatic failover on combination ports, see the ExtremeXOS 21.1 User Guide.

Published April 28, 2016prev | next

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