Aruba 2920 trunk options to server NIC team 2012 R2

[mihaib200]

Hello,

First of all, i'm not a network admin and my knowledge about networking is limited.

What i need to do is to setup some of 2x stacking Aruba 2920 ports to use with clustered W 2012 R2 Hyper-V hosts (G9 servers) for link aggregation and load balancing (more speed). Also, the link should be up if one port is down.

Currently, I configured 2 ports pairs in static trunking using the non-protocol trunk option.

I understand that Aruba have 2 options for trunking:

- non-protocol using the trunk option (only static trunking)

- LACP using LACP option ( can be dynamic or static trunking)

After reading some more, people recommend using LACP - static trunking (i don't use GVRP). I'm thinking to switch to this mode, what do you think?

On the switch side i will disable and after, untrunk the ports. Create the LACP trunk using the CLI and enable the ports.

On the server side, what settings should i made regarding the switch dependent modes: Static Trunking or LACP. And for Load Balancing: Address Hash or Dynamic?

Can anyone help me, please?

 Regards,

M.

[parnassus]

That's interesting.

I'm facing a similar case (in my scenario I have a Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 deployed directly over a bare metal HPE ProLiant DL180 Gen9 Server with a 2 Ports NIC) even if I've a Comware based HPE Switch to which my Server is currently (with just 1 Port) connected to.

I tried the Switch Independant NIC Teaming (OS only side) way but it was an horrific experience so I reverted back to single link waiting to understand what is the best way to configure both ends.

Have you already read this Microsoft Document related to NIC Teaming on Windows Server 2012 R2?

Microsoft NIC Teaming (LBFO) reference page (for 2012 and 2012 R2) is here.

During the next maintenance window I'm going test the LACP Port Trunking (Dynamic) on Switch side and the related:

• Teaming Mode: LACP
• Load Balancing Mode: Dynamic

on Windows Server 2012 R2 NIC Teaming side.

My doubts are on the Load Distribution Algorithm - NIC Teaming side - to use....algorithm that can be respectively selected between those available options (if using PowerShell):

• TransportPorts [*]
• IPAddresses [*]
• MacAddresses [*]
• HyperVPort
• Dynamic

[*] Microsoft document claims that these first three modes are called and grouped, on NIC Teaming UI, under the "Address Hash" umbrella mode, so when using NIC Teaming UI the drop down list becames shorter:

• Address Hash
• Hyper-V Port
• Dynamic