Quick Poll: Solaris IP Multipathing

Applications IP Networking
1

I've setup Solaris IP Multipathing under Solaris whenever the hardware to do so was available. I find it amazing though that so few places I've worked at don't use it until I arrive. I wanted to find out if I'm running into all the exceptions, or is it really not being used? http://www.duffin.org/solaris/ipmultipath.html

Cheers,

Keith

2

I have never seen it set up on any servers - but then again, most of the servers were running Solaris 2.6 or did not have the hardware.

It is being implemented in other parts of the company I work for - (different areas have different ideas of what should be done). Or at least it is known and suggested.

I think it's not out there much because you don't normally get failures on interface cards. If the failure rate was higher, then it would be used more. I've seen more cables go bad than cards (due to clumsy people) and it's normally fixed at the same time it was broken. I can't remember the last time a system was down due to an interface card.

3

I've actually seen network failures enough to always try to implement mulipathing where possible. I also try to have the interfaces set to seperates switches to take in account a switch failure. I've seen the following happen at least once:

  1. Cisco switch/NIC card settings mismatch - especially when companies have a distinct sepearation between network and host responsibilities. Most networking devices autonegotiate speed and duplex settings by default. Autonegotiation is fine when connecting links that aren't permanent, but permanent links should have hard-coded speed and duplex settings at both ends. More than once a good intentioned NE has made changes that have caused problems on a NIC.
  2. Afore mentioned switch failure.
  3. Bad cable
  4. Failed NIC

Whenever a single point of failure can be removed, it should be.

Cheers,

Keith

4

If it is cost effective. In the case of interface cards it is but then add in the cost of using two ports for each network your one system is on...more switches are needed, folks complain about running out of IP addresses...some battles are not worth it. If you had a SUN E10K, you would have to buy a second because of the single point of failure that is internal to it. Quite costly.