Multiple NIC's and protocols

[M C_1]

Experts - I have a question regarding installing multiple nic cards in an AS4100. Currently I am testing different products that assist in NIC failover.

One such product is Multinet's Pseudo device configuration. This configuration allows for a Pseudo device to be established which is linked to two cards. This option allows for outbound load balancing and failover if one card were to become unusable.

I will also be testing in the near future the native VMS LAN Failover option available in VMS 7.3-2.

One thing I noticed about the multinet option is that its I/P only. It does not include other protocols under the failover protection (assuming one is not using the DECnet over I/P feature). So items such as LAT, DECnet and so on are not covered.

Does anyone know if failSAFE IP operates in a similar way?

With native VMS LAN failover, a driver creates a LL device. So items such as DECnet and LAT can use the LL device name and bind to it. With multinet, there is no logical device to bind to outside of Multinet.

Besides LAT and DECnet, my specific issue has been using Availability Manager. While using the Multinet option I do not have a logical device, however, I still must tell AMDS to bind to a physical device (EIA). But AMDS does not like it at all. Communications are interrupted to the node and simple actions like FTP's or Telnet's to a node while AMDS is running are not reliable.

Anyone have experience using Availability Manager with Multinet Pseudo devices? Or with VMS Lan failover for that matter?

Thanks,

MC

[Volker Halle · Accepted solution]

MC,

LAN failover is an integral part of OpenVMS V7.3-2 (or higher), and as such - just works. All your network protocols will be bound to the LLA device and - as long as one of the failover devices in the set is o.k. - will work transparently. You can manually force a LAN device failover with LANCP> SET DEVICE/SWITCH LLA

FailSAFE IP only works for the TCPIP protocol. It will allow a TCPIP address to fail over to another NIC, if the first one fails. You can run other protocols on those NICs, but they will not fail over.

No problems with AMDS in either config.

Volker.