NIC Teaming

Seagate servers with more than one Ethernet port can take advantage of port aggregation, also known as NIC teaming.
No special configuration is required to use the server on multiple networks. When you connect each network adapter to its respective switch for the network, the server configures itself and the network traffic appropriately.

NIC Teaming Configurations

Three NIC teaming configurations are available.

• Switch independent teaming—Used when a switch does not support NIC teaming.
• Static teaming—Used for a switch that supports teaming but must be configured manually.
• LACP teaming—Used for a switch that supports LAN Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP). The switch does not require independent configuration.

For all NIC teams, the outbound and inbound traffic are distributed across the links in the team.
Traffic can be balanced across the ports in the following ways.

• Hyper-V port—If the server uses Hyper-V virtual machines, each virtual machine has a separate MAC address and uses one server port exclusively. The server places all outbound traffic for the virtual machine on that port, and the switch directs all inbound traffic for that virtual machine to the same port.
• Address hashing—The server creates a hash based on the address specified in each packet and assigns an outbound port based on the hash. This method load-balances outbound traffic. Balancing inbound traffic is not available for switch-independent teaming. All inbound traffic enters via one port.
  For static teaming, the switch’s configuration determines which port to use for inbound traffic.

Configure a NIC team

To configure a NIC team, all Ethernet ports must be connected to the switch.

1. In Server Manager, select Local Server in the left column.
   The Properties table appears.
2. Click NIC Teaming.
3. In the NIC Teaming window, select New Team the Tasks menu.
4. Specify a name for the team and the network adapters to use.
5. Under the list of network adapters, click Additional properties.
6. Specify the teaming mode, the load-balancing mode, and whether both adapters are active.
7. Click OK.

The new team appears in the team table. The team may take a few seconds to resolve and become active.