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aguen
Premium Member
join:2003-07-16
Grants Pass, OR

aguen

Premium Member

[Servers] NIC Teaming, is this possible/feasible?

I'm looking for some input/feedback on the above topic. What the current setup is: 3rd. party internal network, hub and spoke (I think). External traffic from many different IP addresses and subnets is sent to one internal domain (subnet) IP address. This currently is a Gb network, at least on the subnet I'm dealing with.

Is it feasible or even practical to try and setup Nic Teaming between the one internal IP address and whatever the device is at the border of this subnet?

Thanks

Da Geek Kid
join:2003-10-11
::1

1 recommendation

Da Geek Kid

Member

I am not sure if you understand NIC teaming. Think of it as your house having 2 doors side by side instead of one. It will no help a truck drive on your street. It will have no effect to other devices other than giving you a capability to allow two people entering your house instead of one. The IP address, your house's address does not change when you add another door.

So, I am not quite sure what you are asking? maybe try rephrasing the question.
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE to aguen

MVM

to aguen
Generally speaking, unless your uplink speeds exceed your (planned) NIC teaming capacity, not likely.

Also, do you have any performance data that indicates the NIC is overloaded / maxed out constantly?

Regards
aguen
Premium Member
join:2003-07-16
Grants Pass, OR

aguen

Premium Member

Thanks for the reply. The situation I'm in is that I don't own the hardware or network. My employer provides an enterprise print management application for this large entity. They send print data streams primarily via LPR and streaming sockets. The data comes into the network we "live" on from 5 different external networks simultaneously, usually from mainframe (AIX) servers. The print files can range in size from a few KB up to 2GB. At peak periods the incoming rate can be around 500 per min. Our application has been in place for 5 years now and we are approaching 8 million jobs.

We are now renewing the contract and the Server hardware is being upgraded. I was looking into the possibility of using LACP and appropriate switches on our network to provide up to 2 Gb of bandwidth.

LowInfoVoter
Vote early, vote often, vote democrat.
join:2007-11-19
USA

LowInfoVoter to Da Geek Kid

Member

to Da Geek Kid
said by Da Geek Kid:

It will no help a truck drive on your street. It will have no effect to other devices other than giving you a capability to allow two people entering your house instead of one.

i would argue the opposite. teaming increases bandwidth if implemented properly. it's more than just redundancy.

bdnhsv
join:2012-01-20
Huntsville, AL

bdnhsv to aguen

Member

to aguen
aquen - how do each of those 5 other networks physically connect to you today? (via 5 separate interfaces or all connected to a single interface on your switch)?
aguen
Premium Member
join:2003-07-16
Grants Pass, OR

aguen

Premium Member

I've given up trying to get any details from the "owners" of the network. The best we can do is to split out the traffic from just one primary IP address to a total of 3 addresses each on their own nic.

Da Geek Kid
join:2003-10-11
::1

Da Geek Kid to aguen

Member

to aguen
That question is extremely important. Even if you purchase a 10Gig NIC cards for the new servers, if the WAN links are partial T1s you are only going to get partial T1 performance...

You must have data on the print servers. Are all the Ethernet interfaces get saturated when printing 500 per min? If so, teaming will actually help you in this situation. I would actually get more than 2 NICs depending on data load.