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NIC Teaming

Hi All,

How can I team two network cards to use single IP address ? I have Fujitsu Siemens TX200 Server with two built in Network Cards. My operating system is Windows 2003 Server. I am new to this concept? can anybody help me on this ?

Thanks
Shahabas

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gurubrain

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afurman

If your NIC driver supports teaming (load balancing or trunking in meaning), you should connect it to a switch with LB or trunking capabilities. Teamed NICs form virtual NIC with single IP address.

If your onboard NICs don't have such capabilities, you should buy for example 3Com's NICs (100Mb or 1Gig). Moreover, if you want to make even more resilient server connection, then you could buy two 3Com's switches with XRN interconnect and connect each of your teamed NICs to diferent switch. This will form a very relieable aggregated link.

grblades

Yes you can. The network card in the PC needs to support it and so does the Switch. afurman has said that 3com network cards support it and I know that Intel network cards also support this feature and the intel network chipset is often used on server type motherboards.
On Cisco switches it is called Fast Etherchannel.

Let us know what manufactorer of switch and network card you have and we can help you set it up.

Gareth Gudger

To add to grblades Etherchannel, you can have up to 4 NICs together.

Unless they increased it. :)

pseudocyber

It depens on the OS, the NICs, the drivers, and the network gear.

Yes, you can have a single IP for multiple NICs. Either the team can handle this or some OS'/apps can create virtual IP's for the whole team with the NICs having individual IPs.

Here's some interesting & informative links on this from HP/Compaq. HTH

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/networking/16XZ-0702A-WWEN.pdf
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/networking/ai-architecture.pdf
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/networking/nic-faqs.pdf
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/networking/TeamingWP.pdf
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/servers/networking/WhatsNewInProLiantNetworkTeaming.pdf

ss702sh

Most mfgs drivers make you choose to choose load balance or fault toleerance when "teaming". Depending on the software, you can also spoof the MAC by having a virtual MAC address for each of the NICs participating in the "team". The docuements above by psuedocyber are good docs. I really like Compaq's(now HP) NIC teaming. Be careful of the heartbeat that the NICs use to detect if each other are still there. That heartbeat is not an internal communication but is broadcast traffic on your switch. What I mean by be careful is make sure you do not set the heartbeat to too low of a "time between heartbeats" setting. The intel teaming software we have at work to do teaming only allowed from 1 to 3 seconds as a window. The Compaq teaming software allows up to 8 seconds. This really cuts down on broadcast traffic put on the switch by the "heartbeats" of the NICs seeing if their teammates are up and not in a failed or unavailable state.

Good Luck