Dell Emulex Family of Adapters - Manual (Page 808)

OneCommand NIC Teaming and VLAN Manager User Manual P009415-01A Rev. A
Appendix A. Load Balancing Use Cases
Destination IP
808
When Not to Use
If the client, laptop or desktop systems are located on different IP subnets and IP
routing is required to reach them (from the server), this method is typically not a good
fit. When the Ethernet frames sent from the server system's NIC team to the IP router
(often a single gateway) all have the same constant destination MAC address (that of
the IP router), this method does not distribute traffic well. When all of the packets in all
of the TCP/IP have the same destination MAC address (of the IP router), they all hash
to the same member (individual link) of the NIC team, and all of the traffic has to travel
on one link instead of being distributed to across many links.
Destination IP
This method is team member channel selection (hashing) based on the destination IP
address.
When to Use
Use this method in these two situations:

When a server communicates with many client systems (or peer servers) that
are on the local IP subnet (they have the same subnet as the server). In this case,
the destination IP address varies for each client, and a good distribution of load
based on varying IP addresses results between the server and the network
switch.

When the local server communicates with many client systems (or peer servers)
that are located on different IP subnets. Non-local (different subnet) or local IP
addresses give a good distribution with this method when the IP addresses
have good variation across the group. IP address assignments are often not in
the control of the administrator setting up a NIC team, therefore the best way to
guarantee a good distribution is when the group of client systems is large, and
there is good random variation in their IP address assignments.
When Not to Use
This method is a poor fit when you have communication between only a few clients (or
peer servers) and the server, as there is insufficient variation in the set of destination IP
addresses because there are few partners for IP traffic.