Unable to LACP bond on Dell PowerConnect 8132

[DrDebate]

I have two Dell PowerConnect 8132 (8000 series) in a stacked configuration.  My ESXi 5.5 server has a 10 GbE connection to each.  The two ports are configured as a LAG on the switch stack in trunk mode.  I cannot get the bond to work.  The switch stack reports the LAG as "Inactive" and no traffic goes through.  I've tried all seven different hash modes on the switch and none work.  The vSwitch is configured as follows:

Load Balancing:  IP Hash

Network Failure Detection:  Link status only

Notify Switches:  Yes

Fallback:  Yes

If I remove the LAG group on the switch stack I get connectivity but I would obviously prefer LACP.  I have a couple Linux and Windows servers configured identically as an LACP LAG and they all work just fine.  Any thoughts or ideas?

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

Is this on a standard vSwitch or distributed vSwitch? 802.3ad LACP is only supported on dvSwitches. Standard vSwitches only support static etherchannel.

See:

VMware KB: Host requirements for link aggregation for ESXi and ESX

VMware KB: Sample configuration of EtherChannel / Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) with ESXi...

[DrDebate]

Standard - I didn't catch that LACP requires dvSwitch.  So does that mean my Enterprise licensing is no good?  I'd have to upgrade to Enterprise Plus to be able to do LACP bonding?

[MKguy]

That's unfortunately correct. As long as you're not on Enterprise Plus you're stuck with standard vSwitches and static etherchannel.

[DrDebate]

Well that sucks.  Kind of reminds me of the 8 GB RAM cap on the first release of ESXi 5.0 free version.  Hopefully they'll realize at some point that something as simple and common as LACP bonding shouldn't require something as expensive as Enterprise Plus licensing.  Regardless, thank you for your time.