HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Module for c-Class BladeSystem - Manual (Page 101)

Virtual Connect networks 101
Task Action
Enable/disable Select (enable) or clear (disable) the Enable Throughput Statistics checkbox.
Change sampling rate Select a sampling rate from the Configuration list. Supported sampling rates
include:
• Sample rate of 1 minute, collecting up to 5 hours of samples.
• Sample rate of 2 minutes, collecting up to 10 hours of samples.
• Sample rate of 3 minutes, collecting up to 15 hours of samples.
• Sample rate of 4 minutes, collecting up to 20 hours of samples.
• Sample rate of 5 minutes, collecting up to 25 hours of samples.
• Sample rate of 1 hour, collecting up to 12.5 days of samples.
LACP timer configuration
Virtual Connect provides two options for configuring uplink redundancy (Auto and Failover). When the
connection mode is set to "Auto", VC uses Link Aggregation Control Protocol to aggregate uplink ports from
a Network or Shared Uplink Set into Link Aggregation Groups. As part of the LACP negotiation to form a
LAG, the remote switch sends a request for the frequency of the control packets (LACPDU). This frequency can
be "short" or "long." Short is every 1 second with a 3 second timeout. Long is every 30 seconds with a 90
second timeout.
Prior to VC 4.01 this setting defaulted to short. Starting with VC v4.01 this setting can be set to short or long.
The domain-wide setting can be changed on the Ethernet Settings (Advanced Settings) screen. Additionally,
each Network or Shared Uplink Set also has a LACP timer setting. There are three possible values:
Domain-Default, Short, or Long. The domain default option sets the LACP timer to the domain-wide default
value that is specified on the Advanced Ethernet Settings screen.
This setting specifies the domain-wide default LACP timer. VCM uses this value to set the duration of the LACP
timeout and to request the rate at which LACP control packets are to be received on LACP-supported
interfaces. Changes to the domain-wide setting are immediately applied to all existing networks and shared
uplink sets.
Using the "long" setting can help prevent loss of LAGs while performing in-service upgrades on upstream
switch firmware.
Quality of Service
QoS is used to provide different priorities for designated networking traffic flows and guarantee a certain
level of performance through resource reservation. QoS is important for reasons such as:
• Providing Service Level Agreements for network traffic and to optimize network utilization.
• Different traffic types such as management, back up, and voice having different requirements for
throughput, jitter, delays and packet loss.
• IP-TV, VOIP and expansion of internet is creating additional traffic and latency requirements.
• In some cases, capacity cannot be increased. Even when possible, increasing capacity may still
encounter issues if traffic needs to be re-routed due to a failure.
Traffic must be categorized and then classified. Once classified, traffic is given priorities and scheduled for
transmission. For end to end QoS, all hops along the way must be configured with similar QoS policies of
classification and traffic management. VC manages and guarantees its own QoS settings as one of the hops
within the networking infrastructure.