TCP/IP load balancing in MC/SG

[Pramod_4]

Hi All,

I have a MC/Service Guard cluster consisting of two systems.

Two packages are configured with two floating IP address. When the packages are running on the same system, each floating IP would be assigned to different network card, thus why I could achive load balancing. ( clients always use floating IP to connect to this host ).

Now the questions is that when this server makes an outbond TCP/IP connection how can I ensure that it goes through a particular IP/Network card ( I want to achive load balancing/segregation for outbond tcp/ip communication too ) ?

Please note that all the network interface cards are on the same subnet ( HP-UX 11.0, Logical IP is used )

Note: Maximum out bond connections are made bewteen servers within the same subnet.

Any suggestions ?

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

IMHO

Unless the LAN cards are very heavily loaded what you wish to achieve will not make any real changes to your server.
Also the LAN cards are on the same subnet so as to which card the traffic leaves by will not make any real difference. (Lengths of cable and speed of electricity come into play).

Load balancing is more to do with disks (stripe / mirror /SCSI cards etc).

Paula

[John Palmer]

Hi,

The route that the outbound traffic uses is determined from the routing table.

Multiple interfaces in the same subnet give you problems because you don't have the control to specify which interface you want to use for a given route. I believe the system will use the most recent interface configured.

Have you considered auto-port aggregation which allows you to aggregate several LAN cards into one virtual interface? It does require a compatible switch however.

Regards,
John

[Pramod_4]

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply.

The idea is to bind different application network traffic to different set of network interface card but the unfortunate thing is that they are on same subnet , ?route? could have been of some use otherwise.

I am using ?IP Logical Interface? to plug both the network interface in the same subnet.

John, could u please tell me how can I get ?auto port aggregation? in HP-UX 11.0 for outbound traffic ?

Is there any way to specify that traffic to a X.X.X.X address in my own subnet to be routed via X Network interface card on my system ? ( not with route command )

Regards,

Pramod