1. Installation and Configuration Guide for Exadata Database Machine
  2. Understanding the Network Requirements for Oracle Exadata
  3. Network Channel Bonding Support

2.2 Network Channel Bonding Support

A pair of database server network ports can be bonded to provide higher network availability or bandwidth for the client network and additional networks.

Non-bonded network configurations are not supported on Oracle Exadata X7 and later systems.

In a bonded network configuration:

  • Use Oracle Exadata Deployment Assistant (OEDA) to specify the physical network interfaces that you want to bond for the client network and the additional networks, if configured. OEDA generates bonded network interfaces that amalgamate two physical network interfaces.

  • Manual changes to the OEDA-generated bonding configuration are allowed but are discouraged. Oracle will not support questions or issues associated with non-standard bonding configurations. In any event, bonding configurations having fewer than two networking interfaces are not permitted.

  • The bonded client network interface name is bondeth0. The bonded interface name for the first additional network, also known in OEDA as the Backup Network, is bondeth1. The bonded interface name for the second additional network, also known in OEDA as the Other Network, is bondeth2, and so on.

  • The XML configuration file generated by OEDA includes detailed information that maps the bonded network interfaces to the underlying Ethernet ports.

  • During the initial configuration using OEDA, the Linux bonding module is configured to use active-backup mode (mode=active-backup) by default. Additional configuration of other bonding parameters is allowed but is outside the scope of installation services and must be performed by customer network engineers. Reconfiguration to enable a different bonding policy is permitted but is discouraged.

    For further details, refer to the "Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO" at https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt.

  • You must provide network infrastructure (switches) capable of supporting the chosen bonding mode. For example, if Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) is enabled (mode=802.3ad), then you must supply and configure the network switches accordingly.

    Requirements for specific bonding policies are documented in the "Linux Ethernet Bonding Driver HOWTO" at https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/bonding.txt

Parent topic: Understanding the Network Requirements for Oracle Exadata