HP StoreAll 9730 Administrator's Manual page 130

When creating user network interfaces for file serving nodes, keep in mind that nodes needing to
communicate for file system coverage or for failover must be on the same network interface. Also,
nodes set up as a failover pair must be connected to the same network interface.
For a highly available cluster, HP recommends that you put protocol traffic on a user network and
then set up automated failover for it (see "Configuring High Availability on the cluster" (page 54)).
This method prevents interruptions to the traffic. If the cluster interface is used for protocol traffic
and that interface fails on a file serving node, any protocol clients using the failed interface to
access a mounted file system will lose contact with the file system because they have no knowledge
of the cluster and cannot reroute requests to the standby for the node.
Link aggregation and virtual interfaces
When creating a user network interface, you can use link aggregation to combine physical resources
into a single VIF. VIFs allow you to provide many named paths within the larger physical resource,
each of which can be managed and routed independently, as shown in the following diagram.
See the network interface vendor documentation for any rules or restrictions required for link
aggregation.
Identifying a user network interface for a file serving node
To identify a user network interface for specific file serving nodes, use the ibrix_nic command.
The interface name (IFNAME) can include only alphanumeric characters and underscores, such
as eth1.
ibrix_nic -a -n IFNAME -h HOSTLIST
If you are identifying a VIF, add the VIF suffix (:nnnn) to the physical interface name. For example,
the following command identifies virtual interface eth1:1 to physical network interface eth1 on
file serving nodes s1.hp.com and s2.hp.com:
ibrix_nic -a -n eth1:1 -h s1.hp.com,s2.hp.com
When you identify a user network interface for a file serving node, the Fusion Manager queries
the node for its IP address, netmask, and MAC address and imports the values into the configuration
database. You can modify these values later if necessary.
If you identify a VIF, the Fusion Manager does not automatically query the node. If the VIF will be
used only as a standby network interface in an automated failover setup, the Fusion Manager will
query the node the first time a network is failed over to the VIF. Otherwise, you must enter the VIF's
IP address and netmask manually in the configuration database (see "Setting network interface
options in the configuration database" (page 131)). The Fusion Manager does not require a MAC
address for a VIF.
If you created a user network interface for StoreAll client traffic, you will need to prefer the network
for the StoreAll clients that will use the network (see "Preferring network interfaces" (page 131)).
130 Maintaining the system