Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 6.46
If you have a net-
work switch that
supports multi-
switch link aggrega-
tion, you can easily
create a network
team that spans
switches.
Static link
aggregation
Static or dynamic
LACP (802.3ad)
NFS
Export 1
Datastore 1
Interface 1
Interface 1
Interface 2
Interface 2
NFS
Export 2
Datastore 2
Switches require support
for multi-switch link aggregation
The path on the right has a topology that looks like Figure 6.47. You can use link aggrega-
tion/teaming on the links in addition to the routing mechanism, but this has limited value—
remember that it won't help with a single datastore. Routing is the selection mechanism for the
outbound NIC for a datastore, and each NFS datastore should be reachable via an alias on both
subnets.
Figure 6.47
If you have a basic
network switch
without multi-
switch link aggrega-
tion or don't have
the experience or
control of your
network infrastruc-
ture, you can use
VMkernel routing
by placing multiple
VMkernel network
interfaces on sepa-
rate vSwitches and
diff erent subnets.
NFS
Export 1
Datastore 1
Subnet 1
Physical/Logical
Interface 1
Physical/Logical
Interface 1
Physical/Logical
Interface 2
Physical/Logical
Interface 2
NFS
Export 2
Datastore 2
Subnet 2
The key to understanding why NIC teaming and link aggregation techniques cannot be
used to scale up the bandwidth of a single NFS datastore is how TCP is used in the NFS case.
Remember that the MPIO-based multipathing options used for block storage and iSCSI in
