server Redundancy Question

[kevin.hu]

From the same server, there are two NICs. NIC1 connects to switch 1 and NIC2 connects to switch 2, am I able to achieve loading balancing thru both NICs or one will be active and one will be standby? or Is it more like brand name issue, different vendors have different implementation? I know Compaq's NIC has teaming feature, is there other implementation that does not require configuration, just auto sensing by default? Also, If NIC1 to switch1 and NIC2 to switch2 and two trunks between switches, will one of the NIC port be blocked by STP? Thanks.

[donewald]

If you have some type of interface teaming for redundancy most of them will put one interface into a standby mode and one active. Most of these setups do not pass BPDU's so SPT has nothing to do with this, as both Switch1 and Switch2 will remain in a forwarding state.

Hope this helps you,

Don