Cisco InfiniBand 4x User's Guide download pdf (Page 152)

138 Implementing Cisco InfiniBand on IBM BladeCenter

򐂰 Seven different types of frame distribution algorithms are supported with this product, as

shown in Table 7-1.

Table 7-1 Load balancing options for link aggregation

򐂰 These algorithms only impact outbound traffic from the gateway module on the Ethernet

aggregation. Packets inbound from the upstream switch will be load balanced across the

ports according to whatever algorithm is in use on the upstream device.

򐂰 Which method to choose is almost a trial and error routine, in that there is not one mode

that is perfect for all environments. With that said, the default method (src-dst-mac in

Table 7-1 on page 138) is usually a good choice to try first.

򐂰 To check the efficiency of load balancing, look a the port counters on the ports in the

aggregation to see how evenly they get utilized. Again, perfect load balancing is not really

possible, especially since traffic patterns have a habit of changing.

Distribution Description

dst-ip Load distribution is based on the destination IP address. Packets to the same

destination are sent on the same port, but packets to different destinations are

sent on different ports in the channel

dst-mac InfiniBand hosts do not have a MAC address, so load distribution is based on

the LID address of the InfiniBand node and MAC address of Ethernet node.

Packets to the same destination are sent on the same port, but packets to

different destinations are sent on different ports in the channel

src-dst-ip Load distribution is based on the source logic gate (XOR) destination IP

address.

src-dst-mac InfiniBand hosts do not have a MAC address, so load distribution is based on

the source logic gate (XOR) LID and MAC address. This is the default method

for the gateway module if none is specified

src-ip Load distribution is based on the source IP address. Packets to the same

destination are sent on the same port, but packets to different destinations are

sent on different ports in the channel

src-mac InfiniBand hosts do not have a MAC address, so load distribution is based on

the source-LID address of the incoming packet. Packets from different hosts

use different ports in the channel, but packets from the same host use the same

port in the channel

round-robin Round-robin is a load balancing algorithm that distributes load in a circular

fashion, thereby creating an evenly distributed load. When using redundancy

groups and load balancing, selecting the round-robin distribution can increase

performance in many cases. Even with a topology that contains as few as one

Ethernet host, the performance could benefit from using this distribution type.

Tip: We recommend leaving the load balance method as default, as in most cases, it will

be as likely to produce good load balance as any other.

Tip: During testing of this feature it was found that only static aggregation would work with

the Ethernet gateway module. This means on an upstream IOS Cisco switch that is

attempting to aggregate to this device, you will need to use

channel-group X mode on.

Some of the stand alone documentation for this product indicated that it supported IEEE

802.3ad, but attempting to use

mode active always resulted in the EtherChannel ports

going in to stand-alone mode.

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