RE: Server load balancing on 3560

[tdotvix1982]

Hi,

I had a question about a requirement that I have recieved from a client with regard to server load balancing  on a 3560 switch. The server is a linux server and from what I think, they will have to perform teaming on their network interfaces (they have multiple NICs on the server machine). Sercondly, we could probably use a layer 2 ether channel and then define some sort of a load balancing method of traffic on the 3560 switch. Is this possible? If so could someone guide me with the configuration needed for this? I also read somewhere that support for load balancing has been taken off from the 3560 switch and now you need a special device for that ie. ACE. Also, we have an IPBASE feature set on the switch.

Thanks,

Vick.

Message was edited by: Waqas Raza

[Jon Marshall · Accepted solution]

Vick

There never was support for actual server load-balancing on the 3560 switch so it doesn't matter which feature set you have. 6500s and if memory serves me right 4900 support server load-balancing.

However your etherchannel setup can be done. If you want to load-balnace across the links then you will need to choose the correct load-balancing. The 3560 has the following options for load-balancing -

port-channel load-balance {dst-ip | dst-mac | src-dst-ip | src-dst-mac | src-ip | src-mac}

so wth a server you would probably want to use a version of the ip load-balancing and not the mac load-balancing to achieve a spread across the etherchannel. This is assuming most of the traffic to and from the server will be from remote networks. If you used the mac-address then the src mac would always be the server and the dst mac would be the default-gateway of the server vlan.

Jon