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HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

 
RobboRobson
Occasional Advisor

HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

Hi,

I hope someone can help with this.

I currently have my Lefthand Servers setup across my HP switches in a Active/Passive networking mode.

Is there a better way of splitting them over the 2 switches to increase performance (e.g using Link Aggregation, etc)?
If so, can anyone help me achieve this please? I need pointing at what to configure on the switches and lefthands.

Thanks for your help

James
11 REPLIES 11
teledata
Respected Contributor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

I would use Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB).

This will use both nics, but NOT use a link aggregation protocol.

1) Link aggregation introduces complexity
2) In all likelihood you don't NEED the throughput of 2Gb/s per storage module

ALB requires no additional configuration of your switch, but WILL require you to take each node offline for a short time. Deleting the existing active/passive bond, and creating the new ALB bond will drop the network connection for a short period of time.

http://www.tdonline.com

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

I wuld also note Link aggregation is not supported on two switches you can only use one switch.
Teledata is correct use ALB it is the easiest to setup and manage.
RobboRobson
Occasional Advisor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

Thanks for your help.

Do I need to do anything on the switches or NIC's to get this up and running successfully?

Thanks

James
kghammond
Frequent Advisor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

We are testing a LeftHand spanned across HP switches right now. We have the LeftHand set in 802.3ad still (LACP) mode. We have the HP switch ports across switches set at trunk.

Things seem to be working. My gut is this is acting like ALB. I don't think we are gaining anything with this configuration, but I don't think we are losing anything either.

Any reason to reconfigure our LeftHand's and change them to ALB and to switch the HP ports to just regular ports?

Will the configuration we have right now cause additional problems?

Thank You,
kevin
Kirk Woloshyn
Occasional Contributor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

I have just put up a 5 node SAN on HP 2910al switches. All of the SANs have their NICs split across two switches. I had to turn on Spanning Tree protocol on the switches to make them work properly. I also turned OFF jumbo frames and turned ON flow control. Everything works great with those changes to the switches.

Kirk
Ivanbre
Frequent Advisor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

flow control is recommended to use especially with a high packet buffer.

I always make a 4 ports trunk and split the lefthands on two storage switch with ALB.

just make sure you have rstp,flow en jumbo frames enabled.

I don't know if you are you using vmware of hyper-v but i red alot about lacp and iscsi. Esxi actually doesn't support it.
amitv1
Occasional Advisor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

ESXI support LACP and Jumbo
configuration for jumbo is from the power cli only you cannot from the gui.


the Lefthand best practice is to use LACP
but you need a switch that support lacp between switch

hp ProCurve 3500 support it
Fred Blum
Valued Contributor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

@James, I have tested 2 nodes P4300 HD Raid 5, nRaid 10, Transmit load balancing (=ALB), no jumbo, no flowcontrol, split across two 2910al switches with IOmeter and IOSQL against local HD performance. Not content with the comparison in both write and performance. Now running tests with ALB, jumbo and flowcontrol, and a two port static trunk, LACP.

If this still doesn't meet the local HD I am planning on testing with HD Raid 10, nRaid 10.

Link aggregation according to the documentation will only work on one switch, so no switch redundancy and I question if a 2GB aggregate link can undo the HD Raid5 performance setback over Raid10.
Fred Blum
Valued Contributor

Re: HP Lefthands Split Across 2 HP Switches

@James Networking Best Practises Guide:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01750150.pdf