HP Servers connecting to Cisco Nexus

[aali]

I have number of HP switches that will be connected to Cisco Nexus 2000/5000 switches.

In HP Servers, there are multiple options for NIC teaming.  I like to connect each port in a NIC card to two different Nexus 2000 switches extension to Nexus 5000 switches.  Nexus 5000 switches will be configured as VPC for clustering.

Wanted to know what whould be the best NIC teaming option from the followng HP Server's NIC Teaming options:

Automatic

802.3ad Dynamic with Fault Tolerence

Switch-assisted load balancing with Fault Tolerance (SLB)

Transmit load balancing with Fault Tolerance (TLB)

Transmit Load Balancing with Fault tolerance and preference order

Network Fault Tolerance Only (NFT)

Network Fault Tolerance with Preference Order

[Hongjun Ma]

I'm assuming you are using VC and your OS is windows?

If so, these 4 are supported.

Transmit load balancing with Fault Tolerance (TLB)

Transmit Load Balancing with Fault tolerance and preference order

Network Fault Tolerance Only (NFT)

Network Fault Tolerance with Preference Order

the first 2 can give you TX load balancing while the last 2 is strictly primary/standby.

these 2 are not since they require sort of cross switch port channel across VC modules, which VC doesn't support today.

802.3ad Dynamic with Fault Tolerence

Switch-assisted load balancing with Fault Tolerance (SLB)

[aali]

In this configuration, we are not using VC.  The servers will be connecting directly to Cisco Nexus 2000 switches.

OS is wndows.

Let me know with you recommendations.

Thanks for your help.

[Hongjun Ma]

is this for rack mount server or blade using pass-thruogh module? In either case, you can consider to use LACP bundling for NICs, especially n2k is single homed to n5k. if n2k is cross connected to n5k, then there is some limitation on server NIC side, please check cisco latest n2k/n5k design doc for details.

[shocko · Accepted solution]

Use Automatic and LACP will be used to create an ethernchannel of 2GB ingress/egress.