Installation guide

Alacritech Accelerator Users Guide: Microsoft Windows Edition 3-19
3.6 Configuring Teaming and Failover
Alacritech drivers support network teaming and failover.
Given the flexible nature of Alacritech‟s teaming implementation, it is possible that it
may work with other proprietary solutions as well. For more information on our current
teaming support, visit our Customer Support website at
http://www.alacritech.com/Support/Overview.aspx
It is important to note that EtherChannel and 802.3AD require that the team be confi-
gured on the host and on the switch that the host connects to.
Note: Alacritech’s Teaming implementation does not support the optional Port
Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) feature that is part of the EtherChannel Pro-
tocol. Nor is the LACP portion of the 802.3ad protocol Supported.
PAgP/LACP facilitates the automatic creation of link aggregation groups
by exchanging packets between channel-capable ports. All EtherChannel
or Link Aggregation groups that connect to Alacritech Accelerator teams
must be manually configured. The specific details of manual vs. auto con-
figuration are vendor specific. Consult your switch documentation.
Note: For configuring Teaming under Windows Server Core 2008, refer to Chap-
ter 4.
3.6.1 Teaming Types
Two different types of failover are supported:
 Cisco Fast EtherChannel/802.3AD (1GbE only)
 Hot Stand-by Fail-over
Cisco Gigabit EtherChannel/802.3AD
Creates a team of two or more fast/gigabit Ethernet connections into a single logical
interface.
Because each port in the logical group shares the same MAC address, it is required
that each of the ports be connected to a single Fast EtherChannel or Gigabit Ether-
Channel switch.
If a link fails in a fast Etherchannel or gigabit Etherchannel group, the server and the
switch each independently identify the link failure and switches to another link.
Hot Stand-by Fail-over.
This is a fail-over/redundancy option (no load balancing). One adapter is placed online
while other adapters in the team are offline. If the link for the online adapter fails, it is
taken offline and one of the other adapters is set online in its place.
The Alacritech Accelerators allow for the creation of a Hot Stand-by Fail-over team be-
tween 10GbE and 1GbE Accelerators.