Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
6.
Click OK to return to the Manage Physical Network Adapters dialog box.
7.
Click OK to complete the process and return to the Networking section of the Manage
tab for the selected ESXi host. Note that it might take a moment or two for the display to
update with the new physical adapter.
After a NIC team is established for a vSwitch, ESXi can then perform load balancing for that
vSwitch. The load-balancing feature of NIC teaming does not function like the load-balancing
feature of advanced routing protocols. Load balancing across a NIC team is not a product of
identifying the amount of trafi c transmitted through a network adapter and shifting trafi c to
equalize data l ow through all available adapters. The load-balancing algorithm for NIC teams
in a vSwitch is a balance of the number of connections—not the amount of trafi c. NIC teams on
a vSwitch can be coni gured with one of the following four load-balancing policies:
vSwitch port-based load balancing (default)
◆
Source MAC-based load balancing
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IP hash-based load balancing
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Explicit failover order
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The last option, explicit failover order, isn't really a “load-balancing” policy; instead, it uses
the administrator-assigned failover order whereby the highest order uplink from the list of
active adapters that passes failover detection criteria is used. More information on the failover
order is provided in the section “Coni guring Failover Detection and Failover Policy.” Also, note
that the list we've supplied here applies only to vSphere Standard Switches; vSphere Distributed
Switches, which we cover later in this chapter in the section “Working with vSphere Distributed
Switches,” have additional options for load balancing and failover.
Outbound Load Balancing
h e load-balancing feature of NIC teams on a vSwitch applies only to the outbound tra c.
Reviewing Virtual Switch Port-Based Load Balancing
The vSwitch port-based load-balancing policy that is used by default uses an algorithm that
ties (or pins) each virtual switch port to a specii c uplink associated with the vSwitch. The algo-
rithm attempts to maintain an equal number of port-to-uplink assignments across all uplinks
to achieve load balancing. As shown in Figure 5.32, this policy setting ensures that trafi c from
a specii c virtual network adapter connected to a virtual switch port will consistently use the
same physical network adapter. In the event that one of the uplinks fails, the trafi c from the
failed uplink will fail over to another physical network adapter.
