Network interface redundancy

[Alan Casey]

I have a N-Class server HP-UX 11.0 with 2 network cards.

Is it possable to configure them to allow for failure of one card without interruption to the network connection?

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Hi,
Are you interested in MC/serviceguard or you want some other tricky setup ?.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Alan Casey]

I don't think MC/serviceguard is what we are looking for. I just want to set this up on one server that has two network cards. Clustering isn't an option, but thanks for the suggestion.

[Bill McNAMARA_1 · Accepted solution]

you might want to take a look at the HP APA product - Auto Port Aggregation.

It does this kind of stuff.

I'll look around for a link, but am sure that you can find it easily on software.hp.com.

Later,
Bill

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Well , Then I would tell you a DNS based solution.

Requirements:
DNS server - 1 no
All clients pointed to DNS server.

1)Put two network cards in the server
2)Assign two different IP addresses in the same network. ( it will work ) say 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2
3)Connect the network cards to switch.
4) configure DNS reconrds like this
server.mydomain.com IN A 10.0.0.1
server.mydomain.com IN A 10.0.0.2

SO now the records will come in round robin when the client application requests server name to connecting. This provides a sort of load balancing and failover.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

well, this used to be the link:
J4240AA

don't know where it's gone tho..

http://www.software.hp.com/cgi-bin/swdepot_parser.cgi/cgi/displayProductInfo.pl?productNumber=J4240AA

[Alan Casey]

Thanks Bill,

Auto Port Aggregation is exactly the solution we are looking for. It's difficult to find information on it, thanks for the link, but for some reason the product seems to have disappeared.

I will contact HP for more information on this.

[rick jones]

APA is alive and well. The manuals should be online at docs.hp.com.

You could configure the two links in a load-balancing aggregate, or simply use the LAN Monitor mode of the product.

[Richard Pugh_1]

I am looking for the HP APA software depot. Please post a link if known.

Thanks in advance,
Richard

[Bill Hassell]

APA is a priced product. You'll find it on your Application CD set. NOTE: it requires mandatory support from your switches. It makes no sense to have dual LAN interfaces go into a simple hub or dumb switch as it defeats the purpose of redundancy. An advantage of APA is that 2 ports will double the LAN's throughput as load balancing is part of the product.

It is real easy to locate APA info at docs.hp.com, just search for the keyword: aggregation.