Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters User Manual
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Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet Teaming Services: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57XX User Guide
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acceptable). These interfaces serve two purposes. One adapter is used exclusively for intra-cluster heartbeat communications.
This is referred to as the private adapter and usually resides on a separate private subnetwork. The other adapter is used for
client communications and is referred to as the public adapter.
Multiple adapters may be used for each of these purposes: private, intracluster communications and public, external client
communications. All Broadcom teaming modes are supported with Microsoft Cluster Software for the public adapter only.
Private network adapter teaming is not supported. Microsoft indicates that the use of teaming on the private interconnect of a
server cluster is not supported because of delays that could possibly occur in the transmission and receipt of heartbeat
packets between the nodes. For best results, when you want redundancy for the private interconnect, disable teaming and
use the available ports to form a second private interconnect. This achieves the same end result and provides dual, robust
communication paths for the nodes to communicate over.
For teaming in a clustered environment, customers are recommended to use the same brand of adapters.
shows a 2-node Fibre-Channel cluster with three network interfaces per cluster node: one private and two public. On
each node, the two public adapters are teamed, and the private adapter is not. Teaming is supported across the same switch
or across two switches.
shows the same 2-node Fibre-Channel cluster in this configuration.
Figure 7. Clustering With Teaming Across One Switch