LBT VS Etherchannel

[Thurai]

I am installing few rack servers to put in a new VMware data center. My focus is networking on the physical switch side.

Each server has two 10GbE nic cards for vDS to support multiple ports group. I am configuring it to  use "route based physical nic load." I do not have a clear picture on physical switch configuration side. Let's say if I go with " Route based physical nic load" (LBT), what would I need to get configured on Cisco physical switch.

Do I still need  EtherChannel trunk port on the physical switch or just trunk port? I was asked by the network team whether I need LAG, port channel/EtherChannel, etc.  I would appreciate if you share/guide me some information.

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

Assuming you will need allow multiple VLAN traffic, you just need configure the Cisco switch port as trunk port. I also recommend you configure port-fast (spanning-tree portfast). I always recommend consider use LBT instead of LAG (with IP Hash Load Balancing), and the following blog post explain some reasons why to consider LBT: http://longwhiteclouds.com/2012/04/10/etherchannel-and-ip-hash-or-load-based-teaming/

[Thurai]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, we have multiple VLAN traffic in vDS .I have a question about the uplink failure. Does vDS take care in case of uplink failure  or physical switch takes care it?

[rcporto]

About the uplink failure the answer is yes, the vDS will handle the failure, just make sure you have more than one uplink assigned to the vDS, either as active or stand by, but since you have only two, put both as active, to get redundancy and load balancing.