Diff b/w fault tolerance/load balancing Link Aggregation

The list that follows details the three options—a, b, and c—shown in Figure 2-1:

• Fault tolerance— One port (or NIC) is active (receives and transmits traffic) while the other ports are in standby (these ports don’t forward or receive traffic). When the active port fails, one of the ports that was previously in standby takes over with the same MAC address. This option is depicted as option a in Figure 2-1.

• Load balancing— Only one port receives traffic; all the ports transmit traffic. If the receive port fails, a new port is elected for the receive function. In Figure 2-1, this is option b.

• Link aggregation— A number of ports (NICs) form a bundle that logically looks like a single link with a bandwidth equivalent to the sum of the bandwidth of each single link. Cisco calls this configuration an EtherChannel. In Figure 2-1, this is option c.