Hi gull04,
you're absolutely welcome. It also makes me recapitulate these very interessting things again
I don't want to be a nitpicker, but each VIOS is his own OS/LPAR. VIOS #2 will start counting devices from ent0 again.
You wrote you have 1 HMC - quite a bit dangerous if it fails. The LPARs and VIOS will not complain and run if the HMC is down, but you can't do anything on the Managed Systems for this time.
Also remember that each HMC has a dhcpd which provides internal IP-addresses for the service processors (SP). If you have more than one, they may not see each other. They are attached to a NIC per Managed System often very simple by a plain network hub.
I do not completely understand the layout, tbh.
Does the same colors mean, that they are in the same EtherChannel? For instance the yellow
VIOS #1: ent0, ent1
VIOS #2: ent16
Which of the 3 is the main, which the backup? Are 2 of them supposed to form up as an aggregation as main adapter so you have a higher bandwith?
In terms of hardware failure, it would not make sense to use 1 port as main and 1 as backup when they are on the same adapter.
This might work if only 1 port fails, but usually the whole adapter says goodbye and then there would be nothing left.
Not sure if intended but you cannot form an EtherChannel from adapters of VIOS #1 and VIOS #2. You can only create an EtherChannel with adapters from the same OS/LPAR/VIOS.
Later on the upper layers you can hand over traffic to a vNIC on another VIOS with the HASEA.
For clarity - an EtherChannel is good for 2 things:
- To have a backup NIC available when one of the physical NICs fail.
- To be able to get a higher throughput by aggregating physical adapters as "main" adapter in an EtherChannel. The backup adapter can always be only 1 physical NIC.
If the whole EtherChannel fails, ie. the main and backup physical adapters in it, or the whole VIOS goes down - then the HASEA comes into action. It hands over the traffic to VIOS #2, that is hopefully still up and running
If you describe the requirements on hardware failure or possible aggregation of adapters to get a higher throughput and how many networks are needed, we can maybe assist designing.
You wrote you have 4 x 4port NICs per Managed System - the 2 other are not used on the plan yet - maybe we can do something to make it more failsafe with these.
Cheers
zaxxon