Windows 2003 NIC load balancing problem with Veritas

[Francis Ancheta]

Has anyone encountered the same problem?

I have a Compaq Proliant 6500 with NIC NC3131. It is installed with Windows 2003 and running storage central 5.2. When I install backupexec 9.1 with teaming enabled after restarting the server, I loose my IP and backupexec services would not start. If teaming is not configured it functions well.

[Thomas Bianco]

we had this problem on our cluster, disable media sense on all the cards by making the following registry change:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"DisableDHCPMediaSense"=dword:00000001

[Clifford Bruce]

Can anybody tell me if this has been fixed so you don't have to make the registry change? I have a customer who is having a similar issue and Veritas told them to disable auto-negotiation. The customer is using GIG NIC cards but you cannot disable autonegotiation on the switch as it defaults to 10/100 only when auto-negotiation is disabled. Why does auto-negotiation have to be disabled? It seems to me that there is and issue with the Teaming software and/or Veritas.

[Thomas Bianco]

autonegotiation is very different from TCP Media sense.

Autonegotiation is the NIC self configuration. (layer 1-2, physical and datalink)

TCP Media Sense is WINDOWS tearing down the TCP/IP stack when the cable is disconnected. (layer 3-5, IP and TCP/UDP)

autonegotication should have nothing to do with the IP address, but TCP Media sense has everything to do with it.

[Clifford Bruce]

Thank you. Then in that case has anybody run accross this problem. The configuration is shown below:
Version Information
HP Servers Used: DL380G2 & DL360G3
HP Teaming Software Version: 7.7.1.0.0
HP 1000 Gigabit Card Driver Version: 7.4.19.3
HP 100/10 Ethernet Card Driver Version: 7.1.12
N3 Firmware Version: 4.11.12
Veritas Netbackup Version: 4.5 Feature Rel 7

Issue
HP Teaming is setup on the 1000 Gigabit & 10/100 Connections
Each network card is plugged into separate blades on the N3
Switch assisted load balancing setup in HP Teaming with Static LACP team created on the N3 balanced by MAC address

Results
Under heavy loads the card will drop off the network and then we have to disable/enable the network card to get it back on the network.
During backups the Veritas generates tar file write errors see Veritas KB http://seer.support.veritas.com/search_forms/SearchFrame.asp?SearchTerm=tar%20file%20write%20error&Path=seer%2esupport%2everitas%2ecom%2fdocs%2f200380%2ehtm