New VMware, HP LeftHand SAN NIC Bonding question

[jackblackattack]

I have an HP 4500 which comes in two nodes and I noticed after I setup and configured the SAN that I had a "NIC Bonding" warning that says I should BIND my NICS for throughput and performance. I have already created LUNS and presented to ESXi hosts and moved VMs onto them.

My question is can I configure the NIC Bonding now, or is it too late? What are the risks of doing so now. I can't lose my LUNS....

[Bart_Heungens]

Hi,

The connection on the ESX hosts is done with the VIP address... This address will not change when you enable bonding...

Off course you should see that have a 3rd manager so that you always have quorum (majority) so that the LUN's will no go down when you reset one node to enable the bonding on it...

Personnaly I would dare to do it online, but it depends of how confortable you feel yourself with the product...

Kr,

Bart

[Emilo]

NO it is not to late.

It is refering to the Bond creation on the SANS right?

This will cause a disruption on the network so make sure your volumes are fully replicated.

If not you will need to perform this off-hours

Network Bonding Bonding Order

• Before creating a bond

–      Assign an IP address to both Ethernet interfaces

–      Enable or disable flow control on both interfaces

–      Ensure that speed and duplex settings are configured the same on both interfaces

• After creating a bond

Adjust MTU setting on the bond interface, if needed

SAN Bonding Modes

HP SAN/iQ-powered storage nodes support a variety of network interface bonding techniques, and you should choose the appropriate NIC bonding solution for your environment. The HP P4000 allows each storage node to be represented as a single IP address on the network; at this writing, the software does not support storage nodes with multiple IP connections to the same network. Table 2 highlights the HP P4000 software–supported NIC bonding types and provides recommendations for using each of them.

Adaptive load balancing

ALB is the most flexible NIC bonding technique that can be enabled on the storage nodes. It provides for increased bandwidth and fault tolerance. Typically, no special switch configuration is needed in order to implement ALB. Both NICs in the storage nodes are made active, and they can be connected to different switches for active-active port failover. Any individual client will not exceed bandwidth of an individual link. ALB is supported only for NICs with the same speeds: for

example, 2GbE NICs. ALB is not supported between a 10GbE NIC and 1GbE NIC.

Active/Passive

Active/Passive NIC bonding is the simplest NIC bonding technique that can be enabled on the storage nodes. It provides for high availability only. No special switch configuration is typically required to implement active/passive bonding. Only a single NIC is made active, while the other NIC is made passive. Therefore, an active/passive only a single port is active.

Link aggregation—802.3ad

Link aggregation (LACP/802.3ad) NIC bonding is the most complex NIC bonding technique that can be enabled on the storage nodes. It provides for link aggregation only. Link aggregation bonds must typically be built on both the storage  node and switch as port pairs. Both NICs in the storage nodes are made active; however they can only be connected to a single switch or in a stacked switch configuration where the stack is one logical switch (unless switch vendor provides

proprietary extensions to make it multi-switch aware). An individual client will not exceed the bandwidth of an individual link. 802.3ad is supported only for NICs with the same speed and duplex: for example, two Gigabit Ethernet NICs. 802.3ad is not supported between a 10GbE NIC and a 1GbE NIC.

Flow Control

A situation may arise where a sending station (computer) may be transmitting data faster than some other part of the network (including the receiving station) can accept it. The overwhelmed network element will send a PAUSE frame, which halts the transmission of the sender for a specified period of time. Only stations configured for full-duplex operation may send PAUSE frames.

[jackblackattack]

Guys,

Thanks for your help! 

I went ahead and did the ALB bonding on one of the nodes and i've attached some screen shots of the warnings I have. Does it look like it's configured correctly?

 Why do I still have the warnings in the attached screen shots?

[Bart_Heungens]

Hi,

It looks that there is something wrong physically with your 2nd NIC... Did you check that you have a good connection on it with the switch? Doesn't look like...

Kr,

Bart