Network Teaming

[nevets2001uk]

Not sure if this better suits AD or HP forums but thought I'd try here.

We have two HP DL380's running as domain controllers which over the past year have been causing occasioanl headaches. At times after a reboot DNS seems to go wrong (they are caching only to our main DNS servers) and then replication fails. In the past this seems to resolve itself after many hours banging my head against the wall.

It occured again today and for the first time I tried un-teaming the two network cards in the each server. This immediately seemed to resolve the replication issue.

What I'd like to know is whether this might just be conincidence or if this could actually have caused the problems all along?

Is teaming recommended for domain controllers? If not how would we best setup the two NICs so that they will fail over? At the moment I've disabled one and have been using a single NIC but this doesn't offer any redundancy.

Steve G (MCSE / MCSA:Messaging)

 

[TheLad]

As a start, I would check that you are using the latest drivers for NIC and Teaming and also the latest firmware for the NICs as well.

Also, how have you got the switch ports configured? Are they on the same switch and configured in a team or are they on separate switches? Also, are the speed/duplex forced on both switch and server?

Are there any Events logged in the Event Viewer that may give you a clue whats happening?

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[SteveRoadWarrior]

We've used HP Teaming on lots of AD servers in different networks with no regrets except one:
DHCP server doesn't seem to work right when you're teaming for performance (Bonding 1+1=2GB). Outside of that, it should be great.

I agree with TheLad; you should definitely do the Firmware CD (latest) and Proliant Support Pack (latest). Make sure you get the NIC Firmware updated (it can be a little tricky sometimes).

Next time you reboot, even with the NICs Teamed, just try to unplug and plug them back into the Ethernet jack to see if it is the disconnect/reconnect that helps the NETLOGON service re-register in DNS/WINS. There are some KB articles that help you adjust how DNS and WINS(netbios over TCPIP) register with their respective directories by manually editing the Windows Registry. You may want to troll the DNS zone and make sure all the records look right.

Also look into race conditions where the services are starting too quickly or out of order. The EV should give you some pointers here.

 

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks for the advice and sorry for the late reply. We ended up disabling teaming and made some other changes and all was well.

All drivers etc are up to date.

What is the preferred method to configure the teaming for best network performance? Do I need to make a change on the switch ports also?

Steve G (MCSE / MCSA:Messaging)

 

[blister911]

Steve G,
Yes, the switch ports also need to be bound together. In the past the switch ports needed to be next to each other. If I remember correctly they needed to be top/bottom, like ports 1&2. And I also remember hearing something from our network guy about if ports 1&2 are bound, not to bind 3&4 unless all 4 ports are bound together. However, with the newer capabilities of today's switches (we run Cisco), that is no longer the only way to configure them.

We bind all our servers for 1+1 to give us double the throughput (theoretically). I think its called switch-assisted load balancing.

 

[nevets2001uk]

Thanks. I actually did a bit of research and it seemed to suggest I could use Transmit Load Balancing without changing the switch config. This seems to work and I believe should give us 2GB transmit and 1GB recieve to the master NIC.

I'll take a look at the switch assisted load balancing as I presume this will allow for 2GB recieve.

Steve G (MCSE / MCSA:Messaging)