Public And Private System Networks; Public Network Provisioning; Private Network Provisioning; Tips And Examples For Network Provisioning - Scale Computing HC3 Manual

Networking Preparations

Public and Private System Networks

The HC3 system has two distinct physical networks in which it participates. A public network provides a path
to allow access to the HC3 web interface as well as access to VMs running on the system and is known as the
LAN network. A private network, known as the Backplane network, is used for inter-node communication.
This includes critical system operations such as the mirroring of data blocks for redundancy between the
nodes. It is critical that the Backplane network is isolated to a single HC3 system only (physically or through
VLANs) to ensure system stability and performance.

Public Network Provisioning

The LAN ports on any Scale Computing node are in an active / passive bond used for failover. This means
that only one LAN port is ever active at a time. There is a default primary and secondary port; which physical
port this correlates to in the HC3 system is different between 1 GbE and 10 GbE nodes, but will always be
designated LAN0. For redundancy, both the LAN0 and LAN1 ports on a node should always be cabled in to
your switch(es).
LAN IP addresses should be assigned from your primary data network and are used by your system's nodes to
communicate data between the system and network. These addresses are used only for data communication
and HC3 web interface access. An internal firewall blocks all other traffic outside HC3 system features.

Private Network Provisioning

The backplane ports on any Scale Computing node are in an active / passive bond used for failover. This
means that only one backplane port is ever active at a time. There is a default primary and secondary port;
which physical port this correlates to in the HC3 system is different between 1 GbE and 10 GbE nodes but
will always be designated Backplane0. For redundancy, both the Backplane0 and Backplane1 ports on a node
should always be cabled in to your switch(es).
Backplane IP addresses should be assigned from a private network used solely by your system's nodes to
communicate with other nodes of the same system and should be non-routable from any other part of the
network. These addresses are used only for inter-node communication, system data striping, and system
data mirroring. The system backplane is critical to system operation as the backbone of the system, and it is
what makes the separate nodes a single HC3 system once they are initialized. An internal firewall blocks all
backplane traffic aside from the HC3 system traffic.
Due to their importance, backplane IP addresses are permanent. Once set, they cannot be changed without
an entire system reset, which would wipe all data and configurations on the system.

Tips and Examples for Network Provisioning

Here you can find some tips to keep in mind when you are assigning LAN and backplane IP addresses:
• Backplane IP addresses should match the last octet of LAN IP addresses when possible;
for example, LAN IP 192.168.100.10 would have a matching backplane IP of 1.1.1.10.
• LAN IP addresses should be provisioned in the same block, with room for node
additions later; for example, a four node system would have a LAN IP scheme of
10.100.1.11, 10.100.11.12, 10.100.1.13, and 10.100.1.14 and then 10.100.1.15-18 would
be blocked out for subsequent nodes down the road as necessary.
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