Load Balancing with Catalyst Blade 3020

Mansoor Hafeez · ‎08-11-2008

Greetings

I have HP C Class blade system in which i have to install the Redhat Linux Operating System. In the Blade system I have Two Cisco Catalyst 3020 Switches installed. There are two Gigabit Ports in each blade system which are connected internally in such a way that first port is connected to One Switch and Second Port is connected to second switch.

Now as per requirement i have to configure the both ports of the Blade Server in Load Sharing Mode. Now as internal connectivity of ports are not going to same switch but on different switches so Can i confgure both switches in a way where ports from both switches are forming the etherchannel bundle?

The other question if i configure the load sharing on Blade System than is it also required on CAtalyst Switch?

Thanks in advance for answer.

Mansoor

branfarm1 · ‎08-14-2008

Hi Mansoor,

I also run a lot of dual-homed servers inside the HP c-class blade system. In my experience, the ability to load-balance traffic from a server to the LAN, is a function of the NIC bonding driver you are using on your OS. You need to modify the bonding configuration and change your bonding mode to round-robin (which it sounds like you have already done). I don't believe you can create an etherchannel bundle on links from two separate switches.

Mansoor Hafeez · ‎08-15-2008

Thanks for the answer.

So my understanding is that I only need to create the NIC bonding on my OS side and on Switch side i donot need to create anything like etherchannel. The bonding will work even if there is nothing configured on Cisco Switch.

branfarm1 · ‎08-15-2008

That's correct. You should be able to verify that the load-balancing is working by sending some test traffic from the server to a another box and monitoring the interfaces on each switch.