HP Integrity rx2800 HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming Whitepaper - Page 19

Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance (TLB) Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance (TLB) is a team type that allows the server to load balance its transmit traffic. TLB is switch independent and supports switch fault tolerance by allowing the teamed ports to be connected to more than one switch in the same LAN. With TLB, traffic received by the server is not load balanced. The primary teamed port is responsible for receiving all traffic destined for the server. In case of a failure of the primary teamed port, the NFT mechanism ensures connectivity to the server is preserved by selecting another teamed port to assume the role. TLB is a basic feature of HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming. Refer to "Basic Teaming Versus Advanced Teaming" for more information. Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance and Preference Order Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance and Preference Order is identical in almost every way to TLB. The only difference is that this team type allows the SA to prioritize the order in which teamed ports should be the Primary teamed port. This ability is important in environments where one or more teamed ports are more preferred than other ports in the same team. The need for ranking certain teamed ports better than others can be a result of unequal speeds, better adapter capabilities (for example, higher receive/transmit descriptors or buffers, interrupt coalescence, etc.), or preference for the team's Primary port to be located on a specific switch. Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance and Preference Order is a basic feature of HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming. Refer to "Basic Teaming Versus Advanced Teaming" for more information. Switch-assisted Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance (SLB) Switch-assisted Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance (SLB) is a team type that allows full transmit and receive load balancing. SLB requires the use of a switch that supports some form of Port Trunking (for example, EtherChannel, MultiLink Trunking, etc.). SLB doesn't support switch redundancy since all ports in a team must be connected to the same switch. SLB is similar to the 802.3ad Dynamic team type discussed later. SLB is a basic feature of HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming that doesn't support any of the advanced redundancy features described in "Basic Teaming Versus Advanced Teaming". 802.3ad Dynamic with Fault Tolerance 802.3ad Dynamic with Fault Tolerance is identical to SLB except that the switch must support the IEEE 802.3ad dynamic configuration protocol called Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). In addition, the switch port to which the teamed ports are connected must have LACP enabled. The main benefit of 802.3ad Dynamic is that an SA will not have to manually configure the switch. 802.3ad Dynamic is a basic feature of HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming. Refer to "Basic Teaming Versus Advanced Teaming" for more information. Switch-assisted Dual Channel Load Balancing Switch-assisted Dual Channel Load Balancing, referred to as Dual Channel or a "team of teams", is a special team type designed by HP to accomplish everything that NFT, TLB and SLB team types accomplish all in a single team type. Prior to Dual Channel, an HP Integrity Network Adapter Teaming user had to choose between inbound load balancing (SLB or 802.3ad Dynamic) or switch redundancy (NFT, TLB). Dual Channel allows the user to create two teams, called groups, inside of a single team. Each group (A or B) is assigned one or more teamed ports. Also, each group can be connected to a different switch to provide switch fault tolerance. Full inbound and outbound load balancing is provided across both groups. Should all members in one group completely fail, the team remains available via the other group. If the groups are connected to Overview of Team Types 19