Users Guide

2–Configuring Teaming in Windows Server
Load Balancing and Fault Tolerance
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Limitations of Smart Load Balancing and Failover and SLB
(Auto-Fallback Disable) Types of Teams
Smart Load Balancing (SLB) is a protocol-specific scheme. The level of support
for IP is listed in Table 2-1.
The Smart Load Balancing type of team works with all Ethernet switches without
having to configure the switch ports to any special trunking mode. Only IP traffic is
load-balanced in both inbound and outbound directions. IPX traffic is
load-balanced in the outbound direction only. Other protocol packets are sent and
received through one primary interface only. Failover for non-IP traffic is
supported only for Dell network adapters. The Generic Trunking type of team
requires the Ethernet switch to support some form of port trunking mode (for
example, Cisco's Gigabit EtherChannel or other switch vendor's Link Aggregation
mode). The Generic Trunking type of team is protocol-independent, and all traffic
should be load-balanced and fault-tolerant.
Table 2-1. Smart Load Balancing
Operating System
Failover and Fallback—
All Dell
Failover and Fallback—
Multivendor
Protocol IP IP
Windows Server 2008 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 Yes Yes
Operating System Load Balance—All Dell
Load Balance —
Multivendor
Protocol IP IP
Windows Server 2008 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 Yes Yes
NOTE
If you do not enable LiveLink when configuring SLB teams, QLogic
recommends that you either disable STP or enable Port Fast at the switch.
This practice minimizes the downtime due to the spanning tree loop
determination when failing over. LiveLink mitigates such issues.