HP UX Auto Port Aggregation (APA) Software manual Configuring APA, HP APA Configuration Examples

3 Configuring APA

This chapter describes how to configure HP APA on your system. This includes:

•Reviewing sample HP APA configurations

•Preparing for the configuration by gathering information

•Configuring systems in sample configurations

•Configuring a link aggregate

•Configuring a failover group

•Configuring the link partner

•Performing post-configuration tasks

HP APA Configuration Examples

This section shows some sample HP APA configurations. Select a configuration that most closely matches the environment into which you want to configure HP APA on your system.

Enterprise Intranet Client/Server Environment

Figure 3-1shows a sample enterprise client/server environment. This type of environment is a good candidate for HP APA link aggregations, and has the following characteristics:

•Requires a switch capable of trunking or load balancing.

•Many clients produce many connections. This makes effective use of the HP APA outbound network traffic distribution algorithms. The HP APA MAC address load-balancing algorithm is a good choice. The IP address and TCP/UDP port address load-balancing algorithm also works effectively in this configuration.

•The switch typically provides good inbound traffic distribution. Most switches use the data packet's source MAC address, or a combination of the packet's source and destination MAC addresses, to provide inbound load balancing.

•Depending on the network traffic bandwidth requirements, you can use two to four 100BT interfaces or two to four Gigabit interfaces in an PAgP or MANUAL link aggregation. For the December 2005 release (B.11.23.10), you can use two to eight interfaces. With LACP, you can use up to 32 interfaces in the link aggregation. This enables bandwidth scalability as network loads increase as the organization grows.

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