ISL Trunking allows the formation of trunking groups that distribute traffic across the shared bandwidth of all the Interswitch Links (ISLs) in the trunking group. The ISL Trunking feature optimizes network performance by allowing up to four ISL connections between two switches to merge logically into a single link. This enables traffic to be routed through any available ISL in the group rather than be restricted to a specific, potentially congested ISL. ISL Trunking distributes traffic dynamically across the merged ISLs at the Fiber Channel frame level while preserving in-order delivery of the frames. ISL Trunking is compatible with both short wavelength (SWL) and long wavelength (LWL) fiber optic cables and transceivers.