Vnic Teaming Failover - Lenovo Flex System Fabric CN4093 Application Manual

vNIC Teaming Failover

272
CN4093 Application Guide for N/OS 8.4
For NIC failover in a non‐virtualized environment, when a service group's external
uplink ports fail or are disconnected, the switch disables the affected group's
internal ports, causing the server to failover to the backup NIC and switch.
However, in a virtualized environment, disabling the affected internal ports would
disrupt all vNIC pipes on those ports, not just those that have lost their external
uplinks (see Figure 29).
Figure 29. Regular Failover in a Virtualized Environment
Lenovo Switch
X
EXT1
EXT2
EXT1 link failure automatically
disables associated internal ports,
prompting failover on all VMs
To avoid disrupting vNICs that have not lost their external uplinks, ENOS 8.4 and
the Emulex Virtual Fabric Adapter for Lenovo Flex System provide vNIC‐aware
failover.
In the dedicated mode, when a vNIC group's external uplink ports fail, the switch
cooperates with the affected NIC to prompt failover only on the appropriate
vNICs. This allows the vNICs that are not affected by the failure to continue
without disruption (see Figure 30 on page
Primary
Virtual
Pipes
X
VNIC
Group 1
INTA1
X
VNIC
Group 2
INTA2
To Backup
273).
Lenovo
Servers
NIC Hypervisor
VNIC vSwitch
VNIC
VNIC
VM 1
VNIC
VM 2
VNIC
VNIC
VNIC
VNIC
VNIC
vSwitch
VNIC
VNIC
VM 3
VNIC
VM 4
VNIC
VNIC
VNIC
VNIC
NIC Hypervisor
Switch