apa.7 (2010 09)

a
apa(7) apa(7)
NAME
apa - HP Auto Port Aggregation (APA) to create link aggregates (often called trunks) and failover groups
of network links
DESCRIPTION
HP APA, the HP link aggregate or trunking product, provides the ability to logically group two or more
physical network ports into a single Fat Pipe, often called a trunk. Network traffic is load balanced
across all of the links in the aggregation, which allows you to build large bandwidth logical links into the
server that are highly available and completely transparent to the client and server applications. HP
APA is available for HP-UX 11i V1, V2 and V3.
In addition to increased performance, enterprise users require protection against business interruptions
and loss of productivity. HP APA features automatic link failure detection and the ability to transfer
traffic to one of the redundant links in a specified failover group. This is done transparently to the appli-
cations to ensure a highly available environment.
Like any other LAN interface, configure IP addresses on these APA lan interfaces using the
ifconfig
command. See ifconfig(1M)) for more information.
FEATURES AND BENEFITS
HP APA provides the following key benefits:
• Bandwidth scalability: Allows scaling of networks to improve aggregate throughput.
• High availability: Provides redundancy or link aggregate of network ports.
• Load balancing: Supports load balancing and failure recovery capabilities and distributes traffic
across the aggregated links, based on IP addresses, TCP/UDP Port numbers, or MAC addresses.
• Single MAC address: Assigns one single logical MAC address to an aggregate and all its ports.
• Flexibility: Allows addition and deletion of ports in an aggregate to achieve desired performance
whenever needed.
• Investment protection: Utilizes Ethernet technology, which provides a natural upgrade path for
current Ethernet installations, leveraging existing end-stations, management tools and training.
• Lower IT costs: Provides automated configuration and management tools using the IEEE 802.3ad
standard or FEC protocol.
CONFIGURATION MODES
HP APA allows the following configuration modes:
•
MANUAL: Used for link aggregates on HP servers that are connected to a switch that has manual
aggregation (trunk) configured.
•
FEC_AUTO: Used for link aggregates on HP servers that are connected to a switch that has
aggregation (trunk) configured with Cisco’s Fast EtherChannel (FEC) protocol, also known as
PAgP.
•
LACP_AUTO: Used for link aggregates on HP servers that are connected to a switch that has
aggregation (trunk) configured with IEEE 802.3ad (LACP) protocol.
•
LAN_MONITOR: Used for failover group configuration on HP servers. There is no special
feature required on switch connected to the links.
MANAGING APA CONFIGURATION
APA interfaces can be configured and managed by using the System Management Homepage (SMH):
• On the SMH page, click the
Tools tab, then click Auto Port Aggregation in the Network Inter-
face Configuration section.
• Use the text based interactive tool:
/usr/sbin/smh.
See smh(1M) for more information.
APA interfaces can also be configured and managed by using the
nwmgr command line interface. See
nwmgr(1M) and nwmgr_apa (1M) manpages or run:
nwmgr -h -S apa [-v]
HP-UX 11i Version 3: September 2010 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 1