amitphilip
Technical User
The following is the background information to my problem:
There are two Linux boxes with two NICs each, e0 and e1. Both the Linux boxes have their NICs clustered, so essentially although there are two physical interfaces, they have the same MAC address and IP address.
I am trying transfer data between the two boxes. Using just 1 NIC, from each box (say e0 from each box is connected to the switch), connected to a switch, the delay acheived in transferring a certain amount of data is 7.5ms.
If I get an extra switch, and connect the remaining NIC (e1) from each Linux box to it, the delay acheived is approximately 4ms (approx. half the time).
I want to accomplish the above using one Cisco 3500XL that I have. I understand that if I had two switches, I could group ports between the two switches to achieve greater throughput between the two switches (using Fast EtherChannel). However in the scenario presented above, if I group ports 1 and 2 of the switch, and connect e0 and e1 from one Linux box to them, the switch does not 'load balance' between the two ports. Data transfer occurs through only one port. This I think is because both ports will see themselves connected to the same MAC address (due to the setup I described before... clustered NICs on the Linux box). Thus, I get only the normal throughput.
Does anyone know of any way two ports on the same switch can recieve data from the same MAC address to achieve greater throughput?
Any help will be appreciated.
Thankyou and Best Regards.
There are two Linux boxes with two NICs each, e0 and e1. Both the Linux boxes have their NICs clustered, so essentially although there are two physical interfaces, they have the same MAC address and IP address.
I am trying transfer data between the two boxes. Using just 1 NIC, from each box (say e0 from each box is connected to the switch), connected to a switch, the delay acheived in transferring a certain amount of data is 7.5ms.
If I get an extra switch, and connect the remaining NIC (e1) from each Linux box to it, the delay acheived is approximately 4ms (approx. half the time).
I want to accomplish the above using one Cisco 3500XL that I have. I understand that if I had two switches, I could group ports between the two switches to achieve greater throughput between the two switches (using Fast EtherChannel). However in the scenario presented above, if I group ports 1 and 2 of the switch, and connect e0 and e1 from one Linux box to them, the switch does not 'load balance' between the two ports. Data transfer occurs through only one port. This I think is because both ports will see themselves connected to the same MAC address (due to the setup I described before... clustered NICs on the Linux box). Thus, I get only the normal throughput.
Does anyone know of any way two ports on the same switch can recieve data from the same MAC address to achieve greater throughput?
Any help will be appreciated.
Thankyou and Best Regards.
