topic Re: Virtual connect failover time in BladeSystem - General

Virtual connect failover time

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:50:55 GMT

Hi,

What should I expect for failover time for 2 Virtual Connect Flex-10 units? For example, when updating the firmware, how much downtime should I expect to see on my blades when the first VC resets to activate the firmware and fails over to the second one? It may be minimal, but I'd like to know.

Thanks,

Ugo

Re: Virtual connect failover time

JKytsi — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:00:45 GMT

up to 10 seconds with active/backup. If You config networks as active / active it is much less.

SO

VC_mod1
network_A

VC_mod2
network_B

network_A = network_B

Re: Virtual connect failover time

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:14:53 GMT

I checked my shared uplink set parameters and they're both "Linked-Active". I set my NICS to active-backup (Network Fault Tolerance), and when I updated the firmware in the VC units, I have lost my ssh connexion to one blade. Is that normal?

Re: Virtual connect failover time

JKytsi — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:56:20 GMT

Did You enable "smart link" ? Without that the bond/team driver does not notice about the failover. Try also results with bonding mode 5 (transmit load balancing with fault tolerance).

Re: Virtual connect failover time

Ugo Bellavance (ATQ) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:08:10 GMT

Smart Link is enabled. How is mode 5 better?

Re: Virtual connect failover time

JKytsi — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:30:35 GMT

You have two active NICs on bond instead of one.

I do not know your server profile and how You have arranged the flexnics, but in the simplest example.

mode5, bond members eth0,eth1 both sending and one receving data = 2x10Gb TX BW / 10GB RX BW

mode5, bond members eth0,eth1 one sending/receving data = 10Gb TX BW / 10GB RX BW