NIC Teaming on Workstation Blades

[chuckk281]

Al had a workstation blade question around NIC teaming:

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My customer has a requirement within his Win-XP desktop build to start teaming the network cards on his Workstation Blades. In the server world, HP provides the Network Configuration Utility which is used to team the networks cards of servers, however I understand this utility does not work for Workstation Blades running Windows XP.

He currently has 4 Workstation blades models that contain the following NIC cards

HP ws460c Blade Workstation ------- HP NC532i Dual Port 10GbE Multifunction BL-c WS Adapter

HP xw460c Blade Workstation ------- HP NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter

HP ws460c G6 Blade Workstation ------- Broadcom BCM5708S NetXtreme II GigE (NDIS VBD Client)

HP Proliant xw2x220c Blade Workstation --- Dual-port Broadcom 5715S NetXtreme Gigabit Fiber

The Blade Workstation Support Pack for Microsoft Windows XP does not contain a version of the Network Configuration Utility. 

What are the options available from HP to team the nics on workstation blades running XP.

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Chris answered:

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Since the NC532i is Broadcom based, you can use the Broadcom teaming software, called BASP.  Download the appropriate driver package, and the installer for BASP should be contained within it.  I haven’t attempted to install NCU on a workstation OS.  NCU would be preferred, as it is supported by us, and isn’t as buggy as BASP can be.

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Have you used the NCU on non-server environments? Let us know. Other comments or suggestions?