Virtual Link Trunking

The latest Dell supported OS for their ONIE based PowerSwitch devices, SONiC, also offers a similar protocol as MLAG VLT is a layer-2 link aggregation protocol between end-devices (servers) connected to (different) access-switches, offering these servers a redundant, load-balancing connection to the core-network in a loop-free environment, eliminating the requirement for the use of a spanning-tree protocol.

[3] A major complication of existing link aggregation or bonding technologies is that all members interfaces of such a team/group need to terminate on one single logical switch.

Spanning Tree Protocol is relatively slow in convergence, which can result in periods that traffic can't be forwarded over the network - and thus leads to outages of the applications.

VLT should address all these issues, making it possible to create a loop free redundant network topology without using the Spanning Tree Protocol.

[3] An example configuration how it works can be found on the Blog Geslinux written by Grzegorz Witkowski[4] Prior to supporting standardized IEEE 802.1Q tagging, 3Com used proprietary Virtual LAN Trunking (VLT).