HP Auto Port Aggregation Administrator's Guide HP-UX 11i v3 (766140-001, March 2014)

3 Configuring APA
This chapter describes how to configure HP APA on your system. This includes:
• Reviewing sample HP APA configurations
• Preparing for the configuration by gathering information
• Configuring systems in sample configurations
• Configuring a link aggregate
• Configuring a failover group
• Configuring the link partner
• Performing post-configuration tasks
HP APA configuration examples
This section shows some sample HP APA configurations. Select a configuration that most closely
matches the environment into which you want to configure HP APA on your system.
Enterprise intranet client/server environment
The enterprise client/server environment has the following characteristics:
• Requires a switch capable of trunking or load balancing.
• Many clients produce many connections. This makes effective use of the HP APA outbound
network traffic distribution algorithms. The HP APA TCP/UDP port load-balancing algorithm
is a good choice. The IP address and MAC address port address load-balancing algorithm
also works effectively in this configuration.
• The switch typically provides good inbound traffic distribution. Most switches use the data
packet's source MAC address, or a combination of the packet's source and destination MAC
addresses, to provide inbound load balancing.
• Depending on the network traffic bandwidth requirements, you can use two to eight Gigabit
interfaces in an FEC link aggregation. With LACP, you can use up to 32 interfaces (Gigabit
only) in the link aggregation. This enables bandwidth scalability as network loads increase
as the organization grows.
NOTE: Link Aggregations (LACP, FEC) are not supported with a Virtual Connect Module as
a link partner. Only LAN Monitor is supported.
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