Intel Ethernet Adapter Teaming - IBM TotalStorage NAS 300 User Reference

Intel Ethernet adapter teaming

Intel offers five teaming modes:
Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT)
Switch Fault Tolerance (SFT)
Adapter Load Balancing (ALB)
Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) is similar to Hot-Standby Failover for the
Alacritech adapters. Only one adapter in the team is fully active on the
Ethernet network (for example, sending and receiving data) at any point in
time, while the other adapters are in standby mode (receiving data only). If
that adapter detects a link failure or fails completely, another adapter in the
team automatically and rapidly takes over as the active adapter, and all
Ethernet traffic being handled by the failing adapter is seamlessly switched
to the new active adapter, with no interruption to network sessions (for
example, file transfers) in progress at the time of the failover.
An AFT team consists of between two and eight ports. In the NAS Gateway
300, the maximum number of ports is four, because all Intel adapters are
single port and the total number of network cards is four. All adapters in the
team should be connected to the same hub or switch with Spanning-Tree
Protocol (STP) set to OFF. The team members can be different speeds or
different adapters.
The following are valid teaming configurations for AFT with Intel adapters:
v Two IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapters
v Two PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter by Intels
v One to two IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapters with one to two
PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter by Intels
Two adapters connected to two switches to provide network availability of a
second switch and adapter if the first switch, adapter, or cabling fails. STP
must be set to ON. The following are valid teaming configurations for Intel
SFT:
v Two IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapters
v Two PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter by Intels
v One IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapter with one PRO/1000 XT
Server Adapter by Intel
Adapter Load Balancing (ALB) is similar to Send-Only Load Balancing for
Alacritech adapters. All adapters in the team are active, increasing the total
transmission throughput over the common IP subnetwork. If any adapter in
the team fails (link failure or complete failure), the other adapters in the
team continue to share the network transmission load, although total
throughput is decreased. Load balancing is supported only for adapter
teams consisting of only one type of adapter; different types of adapters
cannot be combined in a load-balancing team.
Two to eight ports from any Intel adapters are combined in a team that
allows increased network bandwidth when sending. AFT is also included.
When receiving, only the port identified as primary receives data. There are
no special switch requirements.
The following are valid teaming configurations for ALB with Intel adapters:
v Two IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapters
v Two PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter by Intels
v One to two IBM Gigabit Ethernet SX Server Adapters with one to two
PRO/1000 XT Server Adapter by Intels
Chapter 7. Managing adapters and controllers
83