What's the difference between Fortigate's lacp-mode static and H/W & S/W switch?

[Jin-Gyu]

If use lacp-mode static because the peer equipment does not support lacp, it seems similar to use h/w switch or s/w switch instead of LAG. What's the difference between Fortigate's lacp-mode static and h/w & s/w switch?

[xshkurti · Accepted solution]

FortiGate lacp-mode static means:
No LACP negotiation:
The FortiGate doesn't send or receive LACP control packets to negotiate the LAG.

All ports active:
All ports within the LAG are always active and participate in traffic transmission.
Used when LACP is not supported:
This mode is typically used when the peer device (e.g., a switch) doesn't support LACP, or if you need a simple, non-negotiated LAG

HW&SW switch on the other hand, ports in this scenario behave like a normal switch.
We can not say that a switch (Cisco or other switch) has all ports in LACP mode. They are normal ports belonging to the same vlan.

H/w switch and S/w switch are FortiGate's hardware and software-based switching capabilities, respectively, which are not directly related to LACP.

[xshkurti · Accepted solution]

FortiGate lacp-mode static means:
No LACP negotiation:
The FortiGate doesn't send or receive LACP control packets to negotiate the LAG.

All ports active:
All ports within the LAG are always active and participate in traffic transmission.
Used when LACP is not supported:
This mode is typically used when the peer device (e.g., a switch) doesn't support LACP, or if you need a simple, non-negotiated LAG

HW&SW switch on the other hand, ports in this scenario behave like a normal switch.
We can not say that a switch (Cisco or other switch) has all ports in LACP mode. They are normal ports belonging to the same vlan.

H/w switch and S/w switch are FortiGate's hardware and software-based switching capabilities, respectively, which are not directly related to LACP.

[Jin-Gyu]

Thank you for your answer.

As far as I know, it acts as a trunk when lacp mode is static in LAG settings. Is there any difference to using a switch, or is there something I'm mistaken about?

For example, Using LAG to use ports 1 and 2 as members, set to lacp-mode static, and using ports 1 and 2 as members of h/w switch

[xshkurti · Accepted solution]

Using LAG on port1 and port1 as members, means that for example if port1 is 1GB and port2 is 1GB, when lacp configured, you will have a "virtual link" made of 2 members that will have a speed of 2GB.
The other end needs also to have LACP configured and the same applies on the other end device.

Whereas if you have port1 and port2 as member of a switch, port1 can be connected to a pc, and port2 to a router. So port1 and port2 are 2 separated identities that connect to the same "bus" and devices that are connected to port1 and port2 can communicate with each other as part of the same LAN.

For the trunk idea, normally LACP is configured between 2 devices when they want to increase the bandwidth and support high volume of traffic. 

To summarize:
LACP 2 ports behaving like 1 virtual port.
Switch ports are multiple individual ports belonging to the same broadcast domain, and LACP port can be a normal member of the switch.

[Jin-Gyu]

Thank you for your kind reply, I have more understanding of fortigate today. : )