Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters User Manual page 10

Configuring Teaming: Broadcom NetXtreme II Network Adapter User Guide
of Teams
Smart Load Balancing™ (SLB) is a protocol-specific scheme. The level of support for IP, IPX, and NetBEUI protocols is listed in
Table 1.
Table 1: Smart Load Balancing
Operating System
Protocol
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2 Y
Operating System
Protocol
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2 Y
Legend Y = yes
N = no
N/S = not supported
The Smart Load Balancing type of team works with all Ethernet switches without having to configure the switch ports to any
special trunking mode. Only IP traffic is load-balanced in both inbound and outbound directions. IPX traffic is load-balanced in
the outbound direction only. Other protocol packets are sent and received through one primary interface only. Failover for
non-IP traffic is supported only for Broadcom network adapters. The Generic Trunking type of team requires the Ethernet
switch to support some form of port trunking mode (for example, Cisco's Gigabit EtherChannel or other switch vendor's Link
Aggregation mode). The Generic Trunking type of team is protocol-independent, and all traffic should be load-balanced and
fault-tolerant.
NOTE: If you do not enable LiveLink™ when configuring SLB teams, disabling Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) or enabling
Port Fast at the switch is recommended. This minimizes the downtime due to the spanning tree loop determination when
failing over. LiveLink mitigates such issues.
Teaming and Large Send Offload/Checksum Offload Support
Large Send Offload (LSO) and Checksum Offload are enabled for a team only when all of the members support and are
configured for the feature.
Please read all Restrictions and
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Failover/Fallback — All Broadcom Failover/Fallback — Multivendor
IP IPX NetBEUI
Y Y N/S
Y N/S
Load Balance — All Broadcom
IP IPX NetBEUI
Y Y N/S
Y N/S
Disclaimers.
IP IPX NetBEUI
Y N N/S
Y N N/S
Load Balance — Multivendor
IP IPX NetBEUI
Y N N/S
Y N N/S