Situation: When configuring a new Cisco 9200 Switch, there are options to select Uplink and Access. The client would like to know which one he should selelct.
A1: Uplink is usually referred to as a trunk port. This sort of link is used for connecting another Ethernet switch. Technically, this port is preferred to be equipped with higher bandwidth than the access ports on the same (1G port on a 100mbps switch). This consideration is to avoid bottlenecks. The trunk port carries – tagged (vlan tags) or untagged (native or without any tags) or both sort of frames.
A2: Uplink is usually a connection from one network device to another. It may be a switch to a router, or a router to a router, or a switch to a switch. Uplink means usually going to the services that your users need access to, e.g. access switches uplinks are distribution switches and the core devices are the uplinks of the distribution. Different distribution for different functions like a server farm, internet edge, wan edge.
A3: Usually an uplink port connects to another switch, while an access port connects to a host.
In some switches, such as some of the Nexus 9000 range, there are 4-6 40G ports, and 48 10G ports. In this case, the 40G ports are designated as uplink ports, and the rest are edge ports.
A4: There is absolutely no technical difference between an access and uplink port. These definitions are conventional. They signify the functional characteristic of the port, not technical. You can configure physical ports as either access or uplink. Some switches have a small number of higher-bandwidth ports that are usually used as uplink ports. For example, a 100Meg switch might have 2-4 1Gig ports, that are normally used for uplink function. But you can as well configure them as access ports. The higher bandwidth ports are used as uplink ones because they have to carry aggregated traffic from access ports and hence will likely to require more bandwidth. But again, they are technically no different from any other port on the switch.