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Network Bonding Modes
Network Swarm supports the following network port bonding modes (as supported by the Linux kernel are):
active-backup (bonding mode 1)
balance-alb (bonding mode 6)
802.3ad (bonding mode 4)
Bonding mode 6 (balance-alb) is only supported when using a single peer switch. If For the requirement is of using multiple switch chassis to provide switch layer redundancy, configure Swarm to use either bonding mode 1 (active-backup) or . The customer can also choose bonding mode 4 (802.3ad) to use with further planning and testing.
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RecommendedBonding mode 1 (active-backup) is advised for “out of the box” multi-switch and multi-chassis link aggregation (MLAG) configurations, whereas bonding mode 4 (802.3ad) needs additional configuration on the switch side to function. Since failover and traffic balancing with |
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MLAG are proprietary to switch vendors, it is necessary to review switch capability to determine the appropriate bonding mode for |
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MLAG (i.e., bonding mode 1 (active-backup) or bonding mode 4 (802.3ad). |
Using Multi-port NICs
Swarm bonds the NICs NIC ports and detects and uses a single IP address for the bond definition.
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InfoMultiport network cards (two or more ports per card) are |
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not considered fully redundant when used in Swarm storage hosts. |
Multiport NICs experience common failure modes which can to disconnect a Swarm host completely. A true 'active-active' design includes the use of separate NICs in the storage hosts to meet that requirement.
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PXE Boot in MLAG Configuration
The PXE passthrough modes are behavior is important in either an L2 or L3 MLAG configuration. Getting Configuring nodes to the for network (PXE) boot when 802.3ad and MLAG are in place is a major pain point for such deployments. None of them behave the same way either, therefore, can be difficult, so planning and testing are critical for such configurations.
Note
The vendor implementations of PXE passthrough for MLAG can differ and may behave inconsistently, therefore active-backup bonding mode is strongly advised
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in this scenario.