143-085 · Question #109
Which three advantages does trunking provide when in Access Gateway mode? (Choose three.)
The correct answer is C. It allows transparent failover and fallback within the trunk D. It maximizes link utilization within the trunk E. It maintains in-order delivery when a link fails. See the full explanation below for the reasoning.
Question
Which three advantages does trunking provide when in Access Gateway mode? (Choose three.)
Options
- AIt allows for quick reassignments of the port ID when N_Ports go offline
- BIt allows teaming to be enabled on Brocade HBAs
- CIt allows transparent failover and fallback within the trunk
- DIt maximizes link utilization within the trunk
- EIt maintains in-order delivery when a link fails
How the community answered
(29 responses)- A7% (2)
- B10% (3)
- C83% (24)
Community Discussion
5
Orla P.Feb 11, 2026C, D, and E are your three. Trunking in Access Gateway mode pools multiple links so traffic can spread across them for maximum utilization (D), keeps frames in order if a link drops (E), and handles failover and fallback transparently without the host seeing any disruption (C). A and B are distractors, port ID reassignment and HBA teaming are not trunking benefits in AG mode.
Goran A.Feb 28, 2026The A distractor trips people up because yes, AG does handle N_Port ID reassignment, but that is a base AG function, not a trunking benefit specifically. C, D, and E are the three you want: trunk failover is transparent (no FLOGI re-login), the load balancing across trunk members maximizes utilization, and in-order delivery is preserved on link failure because the fabric keeps sequences on the surviving members without scrambling frames.
Mei-Ling H.Mar 3, 2026The in-order delivery point is the one most people skip over, but I want to add that "preserved" depends on the switch implementation honoring sequence-level reordering prevention during the failover window, because some vendors only guarantee in-order delivery per ISL, not per trunk group during a live link loss event.
Samuel O.Feb 14, 2026Going with A, C, and D on this one. The port ID reassignment piece in option A is something I saw cause real headaches in a past gig where we had AG mode running across a fabric and an N_Port would drop, leaving everything scrambled until someone manually intervened. Trunking solving that automatically makes total sense as a design goal because the whole point of AG is to simplify the edge, and a port ID that reassigns on the fly fits that philosophy cleanly. C and D feel obvious once you understand that a trunk is supposed to behave like one logical pipe, so failover staying transparent and bandwidth staying maximized are really just the trunk doing its job. E trips people up because in-order delivery is more of a fabric-level concern handled upstream, not something the trunk itself is managing at the AG layer, and B is clearly a distractor since teaming is a host-side NIC concept, not a trunking benefit. I am locking in A, C, D.
Orla P.Feb 15, 2026Samuel, good reasoning on C and D, but the correct set is C, D, and E. Option A is actually a distractor here because port ID reassignment is a behavior of AG mode itself, not a specific benefit of trunking, and E makes the cut because trunk groups do handle in-order delivery within the logical pipe by keeping frames on the same physical link path.