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TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

 
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Hi,

I know that there have been a few forums about this subject, but I can't find the right answer for my issue.

We have a ES47 with twin NIC, but am currently only using 1 NIC for network connection, but would like to activate the second NIC and configured Load Balancing, so that VMS 7.3-2 with TCPIP 5.4 is using both NICs for send and recieving data to the local network. I have looked at FailSAFE IP and this appears to be a Redundancy setup and unable to link 2 NICs for simultaneous working.

Can you please details if there is a solution and if so have this is implemented and setup details?

Thanking you in advance.

Andy K.
13 REPLIES 13
Ian Miller.
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

failsafe IP and failover sets are both for redundancy and not load balancing.

You can configure the two interfaces with separate addresses and use the load balancing feature if you have a DNS server that can cope with the updates (such as the one in HP TCP/IP for OpenVMS product).
____________________
Purely Personal Opinion
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Ian,

Thanks for you answer. We don't want to use multiple IP address as a solution, so will look at using MultiNet once I have confirmed that it can provide the solution we are looking for.

Andy K
Ian Miller.
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

I would be interest in knowing if MULTINET can do this. I am mostly familiar with the HP product.
____________________
Purely Personal Opinion
Richard Whalen
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

MultiNet and TCPware both provide this functionality with their "common_link" functionality. When a packet is queued to a configured interface the interface is first checked for functionality, then the transmit queue length is checked before placing the packet on the queue.

Using multiple interfaces for load balancing does have some side effects: an increase in packets delivered out of order and changing ARP information.

Richard Whalen
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Richard,

Thanks for the thumbs on the MultiNet and the warning about the side affects. Am waiting for prices for latest release from supplier and depending on cost, might migrate over to using MultNet unless there are other issues. It is best to replace TCPIP with MultiNet, or run them in parallel?
Richard Whalen
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

MultiNet and TCP/IP services can't be run in parallel on a single system - it's a pure either/or choice. Separate nodes in a cluster can run different IP stacks, though I would recommend separate system disks so that command line definitions don't get confuseds. Applications should not notice the difference, though you may have to manually configure some servers that were previously installed into TCP/IP Services or that the installation procedure doesn't handle MultiNet. Customer support should be able to help you with any server configuration issues.
Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Andy,

if an HP OpenVMS TCPIP node has multiple LAN interfaces into the same subnet, it uses an automatic algorithm to load balance outgoing connections via the available interfaces.

Volker.
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Volker,

I am trying to setup the VMS server to have 2 NICs or more both sending and recieving data, but also to act a fail over should a cable ot switch die for any reason and hence enable the users to continue to work as if nothing had happened. This is why I am trying to confirm if MultiNet is able to provide this service. It would be the same a Network Teaming as you would on a Windows server with 2 NICs or more.

Thanks for you advise.
Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Andy,

you could set up 2 NICs (with their own IP adresses) and assign a single failSAFE IP address to both of them. This address will be active on one interface at a time and will be used for incoming connections and will provide you with failover capability. Outgoing connections should be automatically load-balanced across the 2 NICs - assuming they have IP adresses in the same subnet.

Volker.
Jon Pinkley
Honored Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Are you having performance problems that you are trying to address?

What type of NIC do you have, and what type of network is it connected to?

Are you trying to get higher performance by using multiple NICs?

If you have two 100 Mb NICs feeding a 1 Gb switch, then at least in theory, you may get more performance by load balancing, but I would bet you would get better performance using a single 1 Gb NIC. I just can't think of a case where having two NICs sharing the same address and running at full LAN speed would be a performance win over a single NIC running at full LAN speed. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, but I would want to see a setup where it was faster before I spent money to upgrade to that configuration.

Having a redundant NIC is normally to avoid outages, not to increase performance.

Does Process Software have any benchmarks showing that multiple NICs increase the performance?
it depends
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Jon,

The implementation we are trying to acheive is improved bandwidth and failsafe connection. We have centralised are VMS services to one system in one site. The ES47 has DEGXA NICs installed, but we are only currently connected via 1 NIC running at 1GB Full duplex to a Cisco 4507.

My intention is to provide a good data flow both inband and outband as me are using IP port forwarding to push applications and processes out to the users PCs and Workstations. The teaming/failsafe is a standard requirements me have, but the VMS server is currently not running in this mode.

I will check with Process to see if they have the details about improved data thoroughput using their product MultiNet.

Thanks for you help in this matter.

Andy K
Andreas Vollmer
Valued Contributor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Hi Andy,

We are using FailSafe IP in our mission critical environment for redundancy and for improving our bandwidth!
Volker mentioned it and I can confirm it.
It works very well.
Keep in mind FailSafe IP ONLY handles TCP/IP.
LANfailover handles all protocols.
But as Ian mentioned LANfailover provides security but not more bandwidth.
According to the engineering a combination of LANfailover and FailSafe IP is possible and supported. The implementation cost is much higher, on the other hand it would provide an excellent network security against interruptions depending in what kind of business the servers are employed.
Sometimes these costs are peanuts compared the costs caused by an outage.
Regards
Andreas
OpenVMS Forever!
Andrew John King
Occasional Advisor

Re: TCPIP 5.4 NIC teaming

Andreas,

Thanks for the confirmation about the FailSAFE IP setup and increase in bandwidth. I have a spare DS10 with twin NIC. I know this is only 100M rather than 1G from the ES47, but at least I and play and break it without impacting the live system.

Thanks to all those who have replied.

Andy K.