IP Network Multipathing Groups

Add this planning information to the “Public Networks Worksheet” in Sun Cluster 3.1 Release Notes.

Internet Protocol (IP) Network Multipathing groups, which replace Network Adapter Failover (NAFO) groups, provide public network adapter monitoring and failover, and are the foundation for a network address resource. If a multipathing group is configured with two or more adapters and an adapter fails, all of the addresses on the failed adapter fail over to another adapter in the multipathing group. In this way, the multipathing group adapters maintain public network connectivity to the subnet to which the adapters in the multipathing group connect.

Consider the following points when you plan your multipathing groups.

• Each public network adapter must belong to a multipathing group.

• The local-mac-address? variable must have a value of true for Ethernet adapters. This is a change from the requirement for Sun Cluster 3.0 software.

• You must configure a test IP address for each multipathing group adapter.

• Test IP addresses for all adapters in the same multipathing group must belong to a single IP subnet.

• Test IP addresses must not be used by normal applications because they are not highly available.

• There are no requirements or restrictions for the name of a multipathing group.

For more information about IP Network Multipathing, see “Deploying Network Multipathing” in IP Network Multipathing Administration Guide or “Administering Network Multipathing (Task)” in System Administration Guide: IP Services.