Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters - Manual (Page 8)

Teaming: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57XX User Guide
file:///C|/Users/Nalina_N_S/Documents/NetXtreme/English/teaming.htm[9/5/2014 3:32:05 PM]
The Generic Trunking (FEC/GEC/802.3ad-Draft Static) type of team supports load balancing and failover for both outbound
and inbound traffic.
SLB (Auto-Fallback Disable)
The SLB (Auto-Fallback Disable) type of team is identical to the Smart Load Balancing and Failover type of team, with the
following exception—when the standby member is active, if a primary member comes back on line, the team continues using
the standby member, rather than switching back to the primary member.
If any primary adapter assigned to a team is disabled, the team functions as a Smart Load Balancing and Failover type of
team in which auto-fallback occurs.
All primary interfaces in a team participate in load-balancing operations by sending and receiving a portion of the total traffic.
Standby interfaces take over in the event that all primary interfaces have lost their links.
Failover teaming provides redundant adapter operation (fault tolerance) in the event that a network connection fails. If the
primary adapter in a team is disconnected because of failure of the adapter, cable, or switch port, the secondary team
member becomes active, redirecting both inbound and outbound traffic originally assigned to the primary adapter. Sessions
will be maintained, causing no impact to the user.
Limitations of Smart Load Balancing and Failover/SLB (Auto-Fallback Disable) Types of Teams
Smart Load Balancing™ (SLB) is a protocol-specific scheme. The level of support for IP, IPX, and NetBEUI protocols is listed
below.
Table 2: Smart Load Balancing
Operating System Failover/Fallback — All Broadcom Failover/Fallback — Multivendor
Protocol IP IPX NetBEUI IP IPX NetBEUI
Windows Server 2008 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Windows Server 2008 R2 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Windows Server 2012 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Operating System Load Balance — All Broadcom Load Balance — Multivendor
Protocol IP IPX NetBEUI IP IPX NetBEUI
Windows Server 2008 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Windows Server 2008 R2 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Windows Server 2012 Y Y N/S Y N N/S
Legend: Y = yes
N = no
N/S = not supported
The Smart Load Balancing type of team works with all Ethernet switches without having to configure the switch ports to any
special trunking mode. Only IP traffic is load-balanced in both inbound and outbound directions. IPX traffic is load-balanced in
the outbound direction only. Other protocol packets are sent and received through one primary interface only. Failover for
non-IP traffic is supported only for Broadcom network adapters. The Generic Trunking type of team requires the Ethernet
switch to support some form of port trunking mode (for example, Cisco's Gigabit EtherChannel or other switch vendor's Link
Aggregation mode). The Generic Trunking type of team is protocol-independent, and all traffic should be load-balanced and
fault-tolerant.
NOTE: If you do not enable LiveLink™ when configuring teams, disabling Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) at the switch is
recommended. This minimizes the downtime due to the spanning tree loop determination when failing over. LiveLink
mitigates such issues.
LiveLink™ Functionality
LiveLink™ functionality is a feature of BASP that is available only for the Smart Load Balancing™ and Failover type of
teaming. The purpose of LiveLink is to detect network connectivity beyond the switch and to route traffic only through team