Teaming between Nics

[frantzcollini]

Hello,

i have four Gigabit Network interface card in my ESX Server 3.5 and i have created a team, assigning the physical Nics to the vSwitch0.

I looked physically to the NICs led during an hard file transfer but i see onyl the first, in sequence, NIC blinking... maybe the team is configured only for failover?

If i want to increase the passing bandkidth in order to have a 4 Gigabit connection, how can i set the team?

Thank you, best best regards!

Francesco, from Italy

[weinstein5]

First off let me explin the three types of load balancing methods vm ware implements:

1. vswitch port based - based up on the order the virtual machines ports, vmkernel port, service console port the vmkernel will choose which physical adapter to send traffice out - this is the default

2. source MAC based - based upon the MAC address of the VM the vmkernel will choose which physical NIC to send the data out

3. IP Based - the vmkernel will anaylyze each acket and based on the originating IP address and destination address the vmkernel will choose which physical NIC to send the packet - this method requires the physical switch to support link aggregation

So now onto with what you are seeing - I am assuming you are using the defaul load balancing which means traffic from anything connected to that switch will only go out one network port - it could be a different port depending on the position on the virtual switch - to utilize the most bandwidth would be the IP Based load balancing method - check out the advanced networking section of for more information -

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[frantzcollini]

Fine!

I have just chosen, in the NIC teaming options: "Route based on ip hash".

Is it right?

Thank you, cheeers!

Francesco, from Italy

[depping]

Yes but you should also team the nics on the physical switch side if you set it up to use IP Hash. Easiest method of load balancing is Virtual Port ID. It just let's the first VM communicate on NIC 1, the second on NIC 2 and so on. This also doesn't require any difficult config on the pswitch

Duncan

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[weinstein5]

Yes IP Hashs will gice you the ability ot use all NICs but as Duncan indicated you need to make sure you set teaming on the physical switch -