does nic bonding increase throughput?

[nageov3t]

or is it application-specific?

I've got a box running solaris that's pushing a ton of traffic over its nics (let's say average is ~2TB worth of files getting moved onto it every day between 12 am and 4 pm) and have been debating whether or not it might be worth it to setup bonding on it for performance's sake (it's got the extra nic and I could hook it up to a second switch pretty easily).

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Yes, not sure how it works on solaris, but in linux you bond them, in windows you use something like HP utility. Also, your switch has to support it.

 

[yinan]

Most consumer level switches wont do this. You have to start getting into the Cisco/Juniper game for this to work.

 

[nageov3t]

Most consumer level switches wont do this. You have to start getting into the Cisco/Juniper game for this to work.

What feature would I look for on the switch to tell? Off the top of my head, I think that the box in question is connected to a Cisco 6509 (with a second one available for the secondary connection)

 

[spidey07]

It's called Link Aggregation (LAG) or Cisco Etherchannel. The distribution algorithm can be changed on the switch to suit your needs (hash on SRC/DST ip, or SRC/DST IP and port. Keep in mind however that if these transfers occur between two single hosts still only one NIC would be used.

 

[imagoon]

It's called Link Aggregation (LAG) or Cisco Etherchannel. The distribution algorithm can be changed on the switch to suit your needs (hash on SRC/DST ip, or SRC/DST IP and port. Keep in mind however that if these transfers occur between two single hosts still only one NIC would be used.

Translation:

If you're serving to 1 computer, you will be stopped @ 1 gigabit. If the machine is serving to many hosts, it can get close to 2gb assuming the hardware can supply the data to the NICs.

 

[nageov3t]

Translation:

If you're serving to 1 computer, you will be stopped @ 1 gigabit. If the machine is serving to many hosts, it can get close to 2gb assuming the hardware can supply the data to the NICs.

thanks 😛

in the enviornment in question, I've got a couple hundred servers pushing out data over a private network to one machine (the receiving machine being the one that I want to setup aggregation on)

 

[imagoon]

thanks 😛

in the enviornment in question, I've got a couple hundred servers pushing out data over a private network to one machine (the receiving machine being the one that I want to setup aggregation on)

😛 Just remember that 2gb/s = about 250MB/s so make sure that the hardware can handle the feed otherwise there is no point. IE if you're pushing only 80MB/s (say HDD limited), a LAG group will have no effect. You may also need to set up LAG groups between some of the switches depending on your layout.

 

[spidey07]

thanks 😛

in the enviornment in question, I've got a couple hundred servers pushing out data over a private network to one machine (the receiving machine being the one that I want to setup aggregation on)

In that case you won't run into any load balancing restrictions. I think the default on 6500s is source and destination IP. You can check with "show etherchannel load-balance"