Port trunking overview

Port trunking allows you to assign up to eight physical links to one logical link (trunk) that functions as a single, higher-speed link providing dramatically increased bandwidth. This capability applies to connections between backbone devices as well as to connections in other network areas where traffic bottlenecks exist. A trunk group is a set of up to eight ports configured as members of the same port trunk. The ports in a trunk group do not have to be consecutive. For example:

Conceptual example of port trunking