Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters Broadcom NetXtreme II Network Adapt - Page 102

Broadcom Teaming Services: Broadcom NetXtreme II Network Adapter User Guide Dynamic trunking works with switches that support IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation dynamic mode using LACP. Inbound load balancing is switch dependent. In general, the switch traffic is load balanced based on L2 addresses. In this case, all network protocols such as IP, IPX, and NetBEUI are load balanced. Therefore, this is the recommended teaming mode when the switch supports LACP, except when switch fault tolerance is required. SLB is the only teaming mode that supports switch fault tolerance. Configuration Recommendations Dynamic trunking supports connecting the teamed ports to switches as long as they are on the same broadcast domain and supports IEEE 802.3ad LACP trunking. It does not support connecting to a router or Layer 3 switches since the ports must be on the same subnet. LiveLink™ LiveLink™ is a feature of BASP that is available for the Smart Load Balancing (SLB) and SLB (Auto-Fallback Disable) types of teaming. The purpose of LiveLink is to detect link loss beyond the switch and to route traffic only through team members that have a live link. This function is accomplished though the teaming software. The teaming software periodically probes (issues a link packet from each team member) one or more specified target network device(s). The probe target(s) responds when it receives the link packet. If a team member does not detect the response within a specified amount of time, this indicates that the link has been lost, and the teaming software discontinues passing traffic through that team member. Later, if that team member begins to detect a response from a probe target, this indicates that the link has been restored, and the teaming software automatically resumes passing traffic through that team member. LiveLink works only with TCP/IP. LiveLink™ functionality is supported in both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems. For similar functionality in Linux operating systems, see the Channel Bonding information in your Red Hat documentation. Attributes of the Features Associated with Each Type of Team The attributes of the features associated with each type of team are summarized in Table 5. Table 5: Attributes Feature Attribute Smart Load Balancing™ User interface Broadcom Advanced Control Suite (BACS) Number of teams Maximum 8 Number of adapters per team Maximum 8 Hot replace Yes Hot add Yes Hot remove Yes Link speed support Different speeds Frame protocol IP Incoming packet management BASP Outgoing packet management BASP LiveLink support Yes Failover event Loss of link Failover time