Bonding the three networks to one NIC

[KENT ORTELL JOHNSON <ke...@utah.edu>]

If I am using one NIC do I need to bond my private, public, and storage networks to it?
Section  8.2.10.4 of the documentation mentions NIC bonding for XenServer, which I am using for all host.
It says all NIC bonding is optional, so I wonder if all traffic will flow properly without me doing any network bonding.

I am using one NIC currently but this may not be the best design. My machine has six NICs but I am only using one while I do proof of concept. Is there a recommended bonding template or scenario?


Here is the section from the documentation for reference:
8.2.10.4. NIC Bonding for XenServer (Optional)
XenServer supports Source Level Balancing (SLB) NIC bonding. Two NICs can be bonded together to carry public, private, and guest traffic, or some combination of these. Separate storage networks are also possible. Here are some example supported configurations:

    2 NICs on private, 2 NICs on public, 2 NICs on storage
    2 NICs on private, 1 NIC on public, storage uses management network
    2 NICs on private, 2 NICs on public, storage uses management network
    1 NIC for private, public, and storage 

All NIC bonding is optional.

Kent Johnson
University of Utah
David Eccles School of Business
Graduate Student in Information Systems

Re: Bonding the three networks to one NIC

[Kirk Kosinski <ki...@gmail.com>]

Hi, Kent.  You don't need to use bonded NICs.  If you only have one NIC
configured on your XenServer host, CloudStack should use it for all
traffic by default.  You can manually configure the traffic labels in
CloudStack if you want to be sure.

Configuring NIC bonds and segmenting the traffic can add redundancy
and/or performance, so it is worth looking into.  There are various
options but usually it is best to have storage traffic on it's own NIC
or bond.  For the other types, try to spread the traffic out so one NIC
or bond is not over-utilized.

If you do enable bonding, be sure to read the XenServer and CloudStack
documentation carefully.  Bonding configuration is an area where
mistakes are frequently made.  This is more of an issue with a pool of
several hosts, so don't worry about it if you only have a single host.

Best regards,
Kirk

On 08/09/2013 01:11 PM, KENT ORTELL JOHNSON wrote:
> If I am using one NIC do I need to bond my private, public, and storage networks to it?
> Section  8.2.10.4 of the documentation mentions NIC bonding for XenServer, which I am using for all host.
> It says all NIC bonding is optional, so I wonder if all traffic will flow properly without me doing any network bonding.
> 
> I am using one NIC currently but this may not be the best design. My machine has six NICs but I am only using one while I do proof of concept. Is there a recommended bonding template or scenario?
> 
> 
> Here is the section from the documentation for reference:
> 8.2.10.4. NIC Bonding for XenServer (Optional)
> XenServer supports Source Level Balancing (SLB) NIC bonding. Two NICs can be bonded together to carry public, private, and guest traffic, or some combination of these. Separate storage networks are also possible. Here are some example supported configurations:
> 
>     2 NICs on private, 2 NICs on public, 2 NICs on storage
>     2 NICs on private, 1 NIC on public, storage uses management network
>     2 NICs on private, 2 NICs on public, storage uses management network
>     1 NIC for private, public, and storage 
> 
> All NIC bonding is optional.
> 
> Kent Johnson
> University of Utah
> David Eccles School of Business
> Graduate Student in Information Systems
>