IP Network Multipathing Features

The Solaris implementation of IP network multipathing provides the following features:

• Failure Detection – Ability to detect when a network adapter has failed and automatic switching (failover) of the network access to an alternate network adapter. Failure detection can only occur when you have configured an alternate network adapter. See Detecting Physical Interface Failures for more information.

• Repair Detection – Ability to detect when a network adapter that failed previously has been repaired. The network access is switched back automatically (failback) to an alternate network adapter. Repair detection assumes that you have enabled failbacks. See Detecting Physical Interface Repairs for more information.

• Outbound Load Spreading – Outbound network packets are spread across multiple network adapters without affecting the ordering of packets in order to achieve higher throughput. Load spreading occurs only when the network traffic is flowing to multiple destinations that use multiple connections.