Overview

Equal Cost Multipath (ECMP) allows a router to load balance traffic destined to some network that is reachable through multiple equal cost route nexthops. ECMP functionality is dependent on L3 routing being enabled on the router.

The nexthop chosen out of the ECMP group of nexthops for a given packet is typically determined by its header information, usually by hashing source and destination IP addresses as well as potentially source and destination L4 ports. The hashing algorithm used is dependent on the type of switch (in this case the Aruba 8400) in use as well as whether the packet is flowing through the slow-path or fast-path.

By default all of the following fields are enabled and utilized for the load balancing decision. Configuration to exclude fields is not available on the Aruba 8400.

  • L3 Destination IP address

  • L3 Source IP address

  • L4 Destination port

  • L4 Source port

ECMP support is NOT dependent on address family. The ECMP feature applies to both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic flowing through the router.

NOTE:

If two different routing protocols are (mis)configured to use the same Administrative Distance, then they have the opportunity to create ECMP groups together.