Users Guide

11–Marvell Teaming Services
Executive Summary
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Teaming and Network Addresses
A team of adapters function as a single virtual network interface and does not
appear any different to other network devices than a non-teamed adapter. A
virtual network adapter advertises a single Layer 2 and one or more Layer 3
addresses. When the teaming driver initializes, it selects one MAC address from
one of the physical adapters that make up the team to be the Team MAC address.
This address is typically taken from the first adapter that gets initialized by the
driver. When the system hosting the team receives an ARP request, it selects one
MAC address from among the physical adapters in the team to use as the source
MAC address in the ARP Reply. In Windows operating systems, the IPCONFIG
/all command shows the IP and MAC address of the virtual adapter and not the
individual physical adapters. The protocol IP address is assigned to the virtual
network interface and not to the individual physical adapters.
For switch-independent teaming modes, all physical adapters that make up a
virtual adapter must use the unique MAC address assigned to them when
transmitting data. That is, the frames that are sent by each of the physical
adapters in the team must use a unique MAC address to be IEEE compliant. It is
important to note that ARP cache entries are not learned from received frames,
but only from ARP requests and ARP replies.
Description of Teaming Types
Teaming types described in this section include:
 Smart Load Balancing and Failover
 Generic Trunking
 Link Aggregation (IEEE 802.3ad LACP)
 SLB (Auto-Fallback Disable)
The three methods for classifying the supported teaming types are based on:
 Whether the switch port configuration must also match the adapter teaming
type.
 The functionality of the team: whether it supports load balancing and
failover, or just failover.
 Whether or not the link aggregation control protocol (LACP) is used.