B200M4 vic1340 Fabric Failover with load sharing for Windows 2012 Bare Metal OS

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

Hello Folks,

There is my configuration : 

1x UCS UCS-5108
    4x UCS B200 M4 (1x VIC 1340)
    2x UCS 2204XP (4x FET-10G)

2x 6248 (8 FEX-10G to chassis)

each 6248 will have 2 10Gb uplink to two cisco 6800 (in vss) 

We will install windows 2012 bare Metal on the servers how can we implement 

how can we do Fabric Failover with load sharing between all the path. 

Kind regards,

[Keny Perez]

Are you planning on doing "Fabric Failover with load sharing between all the path" from UCS?   or that is something you want to do in the OS?

-Kenny

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

I am checking the best way to do load sharing to have the maximum bandwidth from the hosts to front end switch and vis-versa 

[Keny Perez]

Then in UCSM manager you would create a Service Profile with some vNICs going through FI-A and some others going through FI-B and you can either do failover through UCSM or the OS... some ppl just recommend to do failover at the OS level whenever you have an OS that supports and let UCSM do it only if the OS can't.

For vHBA failover, UCSM is not an option... it has to be done through the OS.

Hope that helps,

-Kenny

[Walter Dey]

Best practise is to do Load balancing and failover (LBFO) in the OS, specially with W2012 ...where MSFT integrated this functionality in the OS.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/B/9/1B967767-D0E1-4AA3-9BA4-2FD2B98FBE27/Windows%20Server%202012%20R2%20NIC%20Teaming%20(LBFO)%20Deployment%20and%20Management.docx

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

last question :

what about connexion from 6200A and 6200B to the 2x6800 with vss

I need to have two separate portchannel ? (I have two uplinks ports from each 6200)

[Walter Dey]

Yes !

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/servers-unified-computing/ucs-manager/116095-configure-ucs-upstream-port-channel-00.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/switches/nexus-5000-series-switches/116248-configure-fcoe-00.html

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

(based on the first link) it assumes that the connections from the 6200 must not be crossed to the front switchs ?

[Walter Dey]

from 6200-A eg. one link to 6800-A resp 6800-B, resp

6200-B eg. one link to 6800-A resp 6800-B

And this 2 links are a portchannel (vpc,....)

see eg. http://www.netcraftsmen.com/why-vpc-ucs-to-nexus/

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

on our case we have two catalyst 6800 configured with vss (and there is no vPC support on the Catalyst 6800) do you have any advise ?

[Keny Perez]

Catalyst dont support vPC but VSS is the same idea, so you can use the same design just probably not the same commands.

-Kenny

[Keny Perez]

FYI:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3137691 

"LBFO Dynamic Teaming mode may drop packets in Windows Server 2012 R2"  << check symptoms section for more info

-Kenny

[Mohammed Kamal MOULINE]

this information come just in time ;)

here is my use case : 

The B200M4 (W2K12) are Recorder Server of for a CCTV solution : they have to be attached to two network :

• vlan1 (Camera Networks) that will handle Video files from the cameras
• vlan 2 (Storage Network SMB3 shares) (that will be attached to NAS storage)

for teaming configuration I see two approach : 

1. We can create 3 separate vNIC (<-> Vlan) on each Fabric (6200) and then create 3 team on the W2K12, or
2. Create one vNIC (10Gb) on each Fabric (6200) without vlan taging,  then Create Team on the W2K12 (2x10G), then create 3 Interface for each vlan) 

For 1 or 2, what teaming parameter is best suitable on the W2K12 hosts ?

Thank you,