2–Configuring NICTeaming/BondingSN0054671-00 A 2-15Team MAC AddressAt initialization, the teaming driver selects the team’s MAC address to be the MACof one of the teamed adapters. In general, the first adapter to come up is chosento be the preferred primary adapter. The preferred primary’s MAC address isassigned to the MAC address of the team. Alternately, you can choose any validMAC address as the team’s static MAC address, also called the locallyadministered address (LAA). Make sure any provided LAA is unique for the localEthernet network. This provision gives the system administrator more flexibility inconfiguring the MAC address for a team when necessary.Teaming ModesTeaming is designed to improve reliability and fault tolerance of networks and toenhance performance by efficient load balancing.The following NIC teaming modes are provided: Failsafe Mode ensures that an alternate standby or redundant adapterbecomes active if the primary network connection fails. Switch Independent Load-Balancing Mode ensures distribution oftransmit loads across the teamed adapters. Link Aggregation Modes (802.3ad static, 802.3ad dynamic (active andpassive Link Aggregation Control Protocol [LACP])) enables the use ofmultiple adapters together as a single, virtual adapter with the aggregatedcapacity of its individual adapters.All team types—failsafe, switch-independent load balancing, and linkaggregation—can be heterogeneous as well as homogeneous. Every team musthave at least one QLogic adapter.Table 2-2 shows that failsafe and transmit load-balancing modes are switchindependent, which means they do not require switch configuration. LACP or802.3ad require switch ports configured for LACP.Table 2-2. Windows Teaming ModesMode FailoverCapabilitySwitchDependencySystem FaultTolerance(SFT)LoadBalancingNumber ofPorts per Team(Range a )Failsafe Yes: Layer 2 No Yes No 2–16Transmit loadbalancingYes No Yes Yes: Layers3 or 42–16Static802.3adYes Yes Yes Yes 2–16
