Selecting A Team Type - Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters User Manual

team for your application. The teaming software supports up to eight ports in a single team and up to four teams in a single
system. The four teams can be any combination of the supported teaming types, but each team must be on a separate
network or subnet.
Table 5. Comparison of Team Types
Type of Team
Function
Number of ports per team (same broadcast domain)
Number of teams
Adapter fault tolerance
Switch link fault tolerance (same broadcast domain)
TX load balancing
RX load balancing
Requires compatible switch
Heartbeats to check connectivity
Mixed media (adapters with different media)
Mixed speeds (adapters that do not support a common
speed(s), but can operate at different speeds)
Mixed speeds (adapters that support a common
speed(s), but can operate at different speeds)
Load balances TCP/IP
Mixed vendor teaming
Load balances non-IP
Same MAC address for all team members
Same IP address for all team members
Load balancing by IP address
Load balancing by MAC address
a SLB with one primary and one standby member.
b Requires at least one Broadcom adapter in the team.

Selecting a Team Type

The following flow chart provides the decision flow when planning for teaming. The primary rationale for teaming is the need
for additional network bandwidth and fault tolerance. Teaming offers link aggregation and fault tolerance to meet both of
these requirements. Preference teaming should be selected in the following order: Link Aggregation as the first choice,
Generic Trunking as the second choice, and SLB teaming as the third choice when using unmanaged switches or switches that
do not support the first two options. If switch fault tolerance is a requirement, then SLB is the only choice (see
Figure 1. Process for Selecting a Team Type
Fault Load
Tolerance Balancing
SLB with
SLB
Standby a
2–8 2–8
4 4
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
No Yes
No Yes
No No
No No
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
No Yes
Yes b Yes b
Yes (IPX
No outbound traffic
only)
No No
Yes Yes
No Yes
Yes (used for
No
no-IP/IPX)
Switch-
Independent
Switch-Dependent Dynamic Link
Static Trunking Aggregation
(IEEE
802.3ad)
Link
Generic Trunking
Aggregation
2–8 2–8
4 4
Yes Yes
Switch-
Switch-dependent
dependent
Yes Yes
Yes (performed by Yes (performed
the switch) by the switch)
Yes Yes
No No
Yes (switch-
Yes
dependent)
No No
No (must be the
Yes
same speed)
Yes Yes
Yes b Yes b
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Yes Yes
Figure 1).