Datalinks
These manage devices, and are used by interfaces. They support:
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LACP - Link Aggregation Control Protocol, to bundle multiple network
devices to behave as one. This improves performance (multiplies bandwidth)
and reliability (can survive network port failure), however the appliance
must be connected to a switch that supports LACP and has it enabled for
those ports.
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IB Partitions - InfiniBand partitions to connect to logically isolated IB
fabric domains.
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VLANs - Virtual LANs to improve local network security and isolation.
VLANs are recommended for administering the appliance; otherwise, use
VNICs.
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VNICs - Virtual Network Interface Cards, which allow single or aggregated
Ethernet datalinks to be split into multiple virtual (Ethernet) datalinks.
VNICs can be optionally tagged with VLAN IDs, and can allow physical network
port sharing in a cluster. Step-by-step instructions can be found in the
Clustering Considerations for Networking section below.
Note -
VNIC-based and VLAN-based datalinks cannot share the same VLAN ID.
The IEEE802.3ad (link aggregation) standard does not explicitly support
aggregations across multiple switches but some vendors provide multi-switch
support via proprietary extensions. If a switch configured with those extensions
conforms to the IEEE standard and the extensions are transparent to the
end-nodes, its use is supported with the appliance. If an issue is encountered,
Oracle support may require it to be reproduced on a single-switch
configuration.
The following datalink settings are available:
Table 4-3 Datalink Settings
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Name
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Use the defined custom name. For example: "internal",
"external", "adminnet", etc.
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Speed
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Use the defined speed. Valid values are auto, 10, 100, 1000
and 10000, representing autonegotiation, forced 10Mbit/sec,
forced 100Mbit/sec, forced 1Gbit/sec and forced 10Gbit/sec.
Speed and duplex must be either both forced to specific values
or both set to autonegotiate. Not all networking devices support
forcing to all possible speed/duplex combinations. Disabling
autonegotiation is strongly discouraged. However, if the switch
has autonegotiation disabled, it may be necessary to force speed
(and duplex) to ensure the the datalink runs at the expected
speed and duplex.
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Duplex
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Use the defined transmission direction. Valid CLI values are
auto, half, and full, representing autonegotiation, half- and
full-duplex respectively. Speed and duplex must be either both
forced to specific values or both set to autonegotiate.
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VLAN
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Use VLAN headers.
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VLAN ID
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Use the defined VLAN identifier; optional for VNICs.
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VNIC
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Use a VNIC.
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MTU
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Use the defined maximum transmission unit (MTU) size. The
default MTU is 1500 bytes. Specify a lower MTU (minimum 1280) to
leave packet headroom (for example, for tunneling protocols).
Specify a larger MTU (maximum 9000) to improve network
performance. All systems and switches on the same LAN must be
configured with the chosen MTU. After the MTU value is set and
the new network configuration is committed to the system, you
can return to the network screen and view the datalink status to
see the exact MTU value in bytes that was selected. Note that a
VLAN or VNIC cannot be configured with an MTU value larger than
that of the underlying datalink.
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LACP Aggregation
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Use multiple network device LACP aggregation.
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LACP Policy
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Use the defined LACP policy for selecting an outbound port. L2
hashes the source and destination MAC address; L3 uses the
source and destination IP address; L4 uses the source and
destination transport level port
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LACP Mode
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Use the defined LACP communication mode. Active mode will send
and receive LACP messages to negotiate connections and monitor
the link status. Passive mode will listen for LACP messages
only. Off mode will use the aggregated link but not detect link
failure or switch configuration changes. Some network switch
configurations, including Cisco Etherchannel, do not use the
LACP protocol: the LACP mode should be set to "off" when using
non-LACP aggregation in your network.
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LACP Timer
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Use the defined interval between LACP messages for Active
mode.
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IB Partition
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Use IB Partitions.
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Partition Key
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Use the partition (fabric domain) in which the underlying port
device is a member. The partition key (pkey) is found on and
configured by the subnet manager. The pkey may be defined before
configuring the subnet manager but the datalink will remain
"down" until the subnet partition has been properly configured
with the port GUID as a member. It is important to keep
partition membership for HCA ports consistent with Network IP MultiPathing (IPMP) and Chapter 10, Cluster Configuration rules on the
subnet manager.
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IB Link Mode
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Use the defined IB Link Mode. There are two modes: Unreliable
Datagram and Connected. Unreliable Datagram lets a local queue
pair communicate with multiple other queue pairs on any host and
messages are communicated unacknowledged at the IB layer.
Unreliable Datagram mode uses an MTU of 2044. Connected mode
uses IB queue pairs and dedicates a local queue pair to
communication with a dedicated remote queue pair. Connected mode
uses an MTU of 65520 and can provides higher throughput than
Unreliable Datagram.
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