WHITE PAPER IOMEGA ® STORCENTER ADVANCED NETWORK CONFIGURATION GUIDE SPRING 2010 ix12-300r Introduction Terminology VLAN Configuration NIC Bonding Configuration Jumbo Frame Configuration Other I/O High Availability Options Configuration Procedure Conclusion...
This white paper discusses the advanced network capabilities available on the StorCenter ix12-300r, including VLAN, NIC bonding, and Jumbo Frame, and how to configure them to fully take advantage of these enterprise- class technologies.
REFERENCES 1. Intel Advanced Networking Services With Ethernet Teaming, http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/network/9195p/en/Intel_nic_teaming_10.pdf 2. Using Microsoft MPIO with Iomega StorCenter for iSCSI High Availability, http://download.iomega.com/com/nas/pdfs/mpio-iscsi.pdf 3. Using Iomega StorCenter ix4-200d NAS Server with VMware vSphere 4, http://download.iomega.com/com/nas/pdfs/vsphere_0110.pdf White Paper...
The StorCenter ix12-300r implements IEEE 802.1Q, or VLAN Tagging, to provide the best interoperability. Each of the four physical interfaces can have up to four VLANs tagged in addition to its existing network configuration.
NIC failure. No switch configuration is required. It works with any switch, but not on hubs. The StorCenter ix12-300r supports three modes: NIC failover, adaptive load balancing (ALB), and IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation. To use the 802.3ad mode, the switch(es) that the ix12-300d device is connected to must also support 802.3ad protocol.
To reduce interoperability issues, NICs capable of Jumbo Frames require explicit configuration to enable Jumbo Frame. The StorCenter ix12-300r supports Jumbo Frames of sizes 4000 and 9000 bytes. Jumbo Frame can be configured on individual interfaces and bonded interfaces.
As illustrated collectively in the procedures below, when using all these advanced network capabilites together the following limitations apply on the StorCenter ix12-300r: VLAN can be configured on individual physical NICs, but cannot be configured on bonded NICs. Each NIC can have up to four VLANs.
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3. Repeat step 2 to add more VLANs to the interface. The corresponding switch port must be tagged accordingly with the VLAN IDs. After this step, the NIC has five different working IP addresses assigned to it. Figure 3 Create up to four VLANs per interface3. White Paper IOMEGA STORCENTER IX12-300R ADVANCED NETWORK CONFIGURATION GUIDE...
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In this example, interface 4 is used as the primary device, and interface 2 is added to the bond. Figure 4 Create a bonded network interface 5. Click Apply to create the bonded device. Figure 5 Bonded network interface White Paper IOMEGA STORCENTER IX12-300R ADVANCED NETWORK CONFIGURATION GUIDE...
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6. Click the Bonding Mode dropdown menu to select the mode to be used. This is a global setting, and all the bonded devices on the StorCenter ix12-300r will use the same mode. Bonding Mode: Figure 6 Choose bonding mode 7.