How to team Proliant NICs with Catalyst?

[Dmitry_50]

Hello!

Can anyone explain how to team adapters in ProLiant DL380 G3 with Cisco Catalyst 2950-T24?
I installed the most recent driver for server's NICs, then I made a team: two adapters,load-balancing with fault tolerance, switch-assisted, balance with MAC.
On Catalyst: two ifaces, channel-group 1 mode on.

Link didn't up.
Where could be a mistake?

Thanks for your time.

[kcpant]

hi,

have you tried to team these cards in normal mode( without switch assist )?

[SAKET_5 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Teaming modes are:1)Fault Tolerant (just meant for redundancy) 2)Transmit [adaptive] load balancing 3)Switch Assisted load balancing [load balance of transmit and receive both traffic.

The first mode is pretty self-explanatory. Second one is meant for transmit load balancing meaning traffic transmitted from the server is load balanced on both NIC(depending on whatever load balancing algorith you choose, based on the MAC or IP, IP would make sense for traffic routing through different subnets).This mode does not require any switch configuration. Mind you, traffic between a fixed server to another fixed server would always traverse through one NIC ONLY.

Switch assisted load balancing is majorly a switch feature. You need to setup a multi link Trunk FIRST on the switch, then you specify switch assisted load balancing on the teaming configuration. Set it to load balance traffic based on IP.

So, ensure you have the latest system BIOS AND PSP 7 (Proliant support pack). Also, ensure that you do not have more than one IP on the teamed (virtual interface).

Hope you are not expecting any fat pipe for network throughput by this,confirm also that the switch supports 802.3ad protocol and configure the appropriate switch load balancing algorithm as well.

Hope it was of help and don't forget to assign points:)

Regards,
SAKET.

[SAKET_5]

Hi Dmitry,

I forgot to mention in my last reply that in Trasmit or Adaptive load balancing mode of the team, traffic received by the server is only handled by the primary NIC.

Thought, just for the sake of completeness of information, I should make it clear.

Any updates from your end.

Hope, it helps and don't forget to assign points:)

Regards

[Dmitry_50]

Hello!

Thanks SAKET for help. I gave you some pts. -)) But I've already read some docs from HP about adapter teaming. -))

May be, I didn't ask my question correctly.

But I'd like to see some lines of Cisco IOS commands for making a NIC team -))
Shortly, problem was in correct VLAN ID setting on all ifaces that were included in port-channel and port-channel mode must be On/FEC neither LACP nor PAgP.

I've solved this problem with next conf:
1) interface Port-channel1
switchport access vlan 77
no ip address
2) interface FastEthernet0/21
switchport access vlan 77
no ip address
no keepalive
duplex full
speed 100
no cdp enable
channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface FastEthernet0/22
switchport access vlan 77
no ip address
no keepalive
duplex full
speed 100
no cdp enable
channel-group 1 mode on

[SAKET_5]

Hi Dmitry,

pleasure to hear that you have solved the problem. I have a few queries for you tho:

+ what load balancing algorithm does your swicth use?
+ i m fairly sure you won't get any fat pipes for network bandwidth, i.e. 2*100Mbps connection teamed for SLB wouldn't provide you 200Mbps connection for traffic between two fixed hosts. Do you observer the same?
+ do you load balance based on IP?

Regards,

[Dmitry_50]

Hi SAKET,

As I've mentioned above there is Cisco Catalyst C2950-T24. The ways of making a NIC team and team working are described in this document:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/switches/ps628/products_configuration_guide_chapter09186a00800d84ca.html

I've configured switch's EtherChannel load-balancing method by source-MAC.
"Load distribution is based on the source-MAC address of the incoming packet. Packets from different hosts use different ports in the channel, but packets from the same host use the same port in the channel."
This way can increase channel bandwidth AFAIK, if you have many workstations that access via aggregated link to server.

[SAKET_5]

Hi Dmitry,

"Load distribution is based on the MAC address of the source..." so all machines on the same subnet rather on the same router would appear on the other side as the same MAC, as the source MAC of the machine would actually be seen as the source MAC of the router which would be the same for a large number of hosts on that subnet/router...do you agree to this?

regards,

[Dmitry_50]

Hi SAKET,

You are quite right in the whole. But in case of use PAgP between swtiches and/or routers traffic is distributed dynamically across physical interfaces in the team.

WBW