Multiple NIC's on 2K Server

[KRB548]

Can any one offer me some help. I have a new server in a test environment which has 3 dual NIC cards. If I team the cards together under 1 IP address my server keeps getting memory leaks approx. 3 days later. If I leave them un-teamed as 6 seperate IP address they are fine.
Has anyone come across this before?

Also does anyone know if I leave all 6 ip address's live and in each Primary DNS entry add that cards own IP address will the DNS on my server use all 6 lan connections or just the 1st 1 it finds? If I look in the DNS records all the IP address's are listed. I have 300 machines which could access the server at 1 time and my current server it flat out with the traffic.

Hope someone can help me.

Cheers.

 

[ashpp]

>Can any one offer me some help. I have a new server in a >test environment which has 3 dual NIC cards. If I team the >cards together under 1 IP address my server keeps getting >memory leaks approx. 3 days later. If I leave them un->teamed as 6 seperate IP address they are fine.
>Has anyone come across this before?

How are you teaming them together? Do the drivers of the card support this ?

>Also does anyone know if I leave all 6 ip address's live >and in each Primary DNS entry add that cards own IP >address will the DNS on my server use all 6 lan >connections or just the 1st 1 it finds? If I look in the >DNS records all the IP address's are listed. I have 300 >machines which could access the server at 1 time and my >current server it flat out with the traffic.

Check the properties of the DNS server and check that Round-Robin is enabled, this means your server name will be sent out to clients with the differing IPs in turn.

BUT If you are using 6 IPs then its best they are all running on different subnets.

If are aren't subnetting (at least 3 subnets) then I cannot see any advantage in using 6 nics (linked to 1 logical IP or not)- unless you are using mutimedia services and wanting dedicated QoS.

If your network card support this and use clever load-balancing go ahead otherwise I wouldn't bother with a non-subnetted setup.
Ash.

 

[KRB548]

Thanks Ashlet for your response.
The NIC's I am using are Intel. 1 pair is built into the motherboard then we have added 2 more Intel Pro 100 dual NICS cards. As I mentioned earlier if I use the Intel ProSet II software to team all the cards together I eventually get a error in event viewer with an Id of 2019. Which in it's description is a memory leak error. As mentioned earlier if I un-team all the cards the error does not reoccur.
I have opted for this configuration of lan cards to try it improve the throughput on our network without breaking them down to smaller subnet groups.
I did not opt for the fibre route as I do not fully understand the different ways of utilising the fibre modules on our switches, plus I work for a school and money is a problem.

Cheers.

 

[NickFerrar]

I use some teamed Intel adapters on servers where I work, but only 2 physical cards joined as one team. I don't experience memory leaks with that config but possibly teaming multiple dual-NICs triggers something - have you checked the Intel support site?