11-23-2009
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Lets relate it to hose pipes. Shared IP is like you are using one hose that is shared to a number of flats. Exclusive IP is like your flat having its own hose pipe.
I use shared and exclusive. In the global zone Ive created an aggregated link ( joined a number of nics together to make a really fast NIC, or `pipe`) On a number of training zones, Ive then used this NIC as a SHARED IP, i.e. that the 5 training zones using that pipe, each having a virtual ip configured using the underlying pipe.
On a production zone, where I want more control of the NIC, Ive created the production zone using exclusive NIC. Within the zone configuration file ( zonecfg ) I just tell it that Im using the exxclusive-ip and tell it what nic the zone will have.
Exclusive-IP allows for greater control over the NIC, SHared-IP doesnt, as the Global zone controls the underlying hardware. When it comes to zones and hardware, zones dont have truely 100% control over it. ITs like a client PC using a proxy server to surf the web. On the surface it looks like your internet request surfs the net, but infact its your proxy server that is doing it. So, sometimes the application, zone, needs more control over its NIC, if you are using clustering software, IPMP etc etc, so you use the EXclusive-IP in this situation.
Sorry if my explanation is a bit over the place :-)
SBK