topic Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding in BladeSystem - General

Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:14:45 GMT

Hi,

We have a C-7000 with two Virtual Connect Flex-10. I was wondering what were the best practices for the configuration to have a network redundancy for the blades.

We have 2 shared uplink sets defined. One uses Virtual Connect #1, the other Virtual Connect #2. Then, we configured the nic using LACP, but we don't see traffic on both LOM. I think that the most appropriate NIC config in this case would be a simple failover (Network fault tolerance in Windows, active-backup in Linux). Does LACP-configured NICs work like a simple failover if it is not connected to LACP-configured ports?

Are we in the right way?

Thanks,

Ugo

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

JKytsi — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:06:20 GMT

Where did You configure LACP ?
What OS ?

You configured the same networks to SUS_A and SUS_B (best practice)?

I would use transmit load balancing with fault tolerance in OS team/bond to get benefit from both active uplinks.

LACP is different thing.

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:37:41 GMT

We configured LACP on the NICs (linux). eth0 and eth1.

OS: RHEL 5.5

You mean mode 5 for the bond on linux?

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:38:54 GMT

Could we configure LACP on the VCs and do a distributed link aggregation on our H3C 5800 switches?

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Mark Wibaux — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:43:51 GMT

You can't create a LACP trunk across separate Flex10 modules. You will have to use either Transmit based load balancing or Network Fault Tolerance mode.

This also applies when going from the Flex10 to external switches. Multiple links from an individual Flex10 can establish an LACP trunk (you do this by setting LACP active ports on the external switch side) however if you define an Uplink Set that spans Flex-10 modules the connection on one Flex10 module will appear as Active and the ones on the other module will appear as Passive.

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 02:28:06 GMT

What is the Linux bonding mode corresponding to transmit based load balancing? Mode 5?

Is there any possible catch using this instead of network fault tolerance (active-backup)?

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:41:24 GMT

I've put it in active-backup (network fault tolerance), and during the VC firmware update, I have had a loss of connectivity of a few seconds. Is that normal? I lost my ssh session.

Re: Virtual connect and NIC teaming/bonding

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:50:23 GMT

I closed the thread in error, please see my other postes.