Emulex 355 manual Load Balancing Across Multiple Cascade Ports

INSPEED™ SAN STORAGE SWITCH MODEL 355	CHAPTER 3 SWITCH MANAGEMENT
USER’S GUIDE

Load Balancing

Load balancing builds on the Automatic Trunking functionality by specifying the path that the data uses to flow between multiple switches. Users can manage the switch’s aggregate bandwidth by manually distributing traffic across multiple cascade ports as shown below. A cascade port is a port that is attached to another switch of the same type and configured as a String or Tree Cascade Smart Setting on the Port Smart Settings page. All data flows through the primary cascade, unless the switch is configured differently.

Note: Cascade ports must be properly configured before load balancing will work.

Figure 3-24: Load Balancing Across Multiple Cascade Ports

In Figure 3-24,host 1 uses cascade port 1, while host 2 uses cascade port 2. All traffic will use the lowest numbered (primary) cascade port by default but ports may be configured to use other cascades.

Note: When tape drives or tape libraries are included in multiple switch configurations incorporating multiple trunks, place the tape drive or tape library and any devices that access those devices on the secondary (duplicate) trunk, not the primary trunk.

Load balancing configuration settings are available on the Web Manager’s Load Balancing page. Before implementing load balancing on the switch, the automatic trunking settings must be configured. See “Automatic Trunking” on page 44 for additional information.

To view the Load Balancing page:

Click Advanced Functions > Load Balancing.

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