Using APA to Build a Screaming Fast Network Server Connection for HP-UX 11i v2 and v3

Using APA to Build a Screaming Fast Network Server Connections
SNSL -- Page 3 --
TCP IP
Ethertype
SA DA
CPU ID
CPU-based Algorithm
APA
TCP IP
Ethertype
SA DA
MAC-based Algorithm
APA
TCP IP
Ethertype
SA DA
IP-based Algorithm
APA
Load Balancing within Link Aggregates
Load Balancing of network traffic is one of the key benefits of Link Aggregates. This
feature allows each link in the Link Aggregate to share the load of network traffic being
generated over the Link Aggregate. This is done without any knowledge or interaction
with the applications or clients sending and receiving data over the Link Aggregate.
APA provides network administrators with three types of
load balancing algorithms:
• MAC-based: Link aggregates inside the data center
• IP-Based: Link aggregates outside the data
center
• CPU-Based: Server-to-server link aggregates
Although these algorithms can be used in any supported configuration, each
algorithm has an optimal configuration, which is described in
detail below.
APA gives network managers the flexibility to stage Gigabit
or Multi-Gigabit Ethernet deployments and because APA
load balancing only applies to outbound packets, there are
no server-to-switch load balancing interoperability issues
to decide.
Outbound Load Balancing
APA, is the only IEEE 802.3ad compliant product to offer
switch-simple load balancing algorithms for three types of
logical addresses: MAC, IP and CPU.
• Server-to-Switch: MAC-based
This algorithm balances the load by hashing the 8
least significant bits of the destination MAC
address stored within an Ethernet packet. It
then directs the packet to a specific link
within an aggregate. This algorithm is most optimal when used in environments
that contain no routing between the server and the clients.
• Sever-to-Router: IP-based
This algorithm balances the load by hashing the 8 least significant bits of the
destination IP address stored within an Ethernet packet. It then directs the
packet to a specific link within an aggregate. This algorithm is most optimal
when used in environments, which contain routers between the server and
clients.