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Network Bonding Modes
Network Swarm supports the following network port bonding modes supported under Swarm (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 calls for use of using multiple switch chassis to provide switch layer redundancy, configure Swarm to use bonding mode 1 (active-backup). You may The customer can also choose bonding mode 4 (802.3ad) to use with further planning and testing. Considerations for that are outlined below.
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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 MLAG |
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are proprietary to switch vendors, it is necessary to review switch capability to determine the appropriate bonding mode for MLAG (i.e., bonding mode 1 |
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(active-backup) or bonding mode 4 (802.3ad). |
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Using Multi-port NICs
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Swarm bonds the NIC ports it and detects and uses a single IP address for the bond definition. Note that multiport
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InfoMultiport network cards (two or more ports per card) |
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are 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.
PXE
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Boot in MLAG
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Configuration
PXE passthrough behavior is very important in either an L2 or L3 MLAG configuration. Configuring nodes for network (PXE) boot when 802.3ad and MLAG are in place can prove difficult to use be difficult, so planning and testing are critical for such network configurations. Vendor implementation
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.