Load Balancing - Cisco MDS 9000 Series Configuration Manual

Configuring PortChannels
Figure 12: PortChanneling and Trunking
PortChanneling and trunking are used separately across an ISL.
• PortChanneling—Interfaces can be channeled between the following sets of ports:
• Trunking—Trunking permits carrying traffic on multiple VSANs between switches.
See the
• Both PortChanneling and trunking can be used between TE ports over EISLs.

Load Balancing

Two methods support the load-balancing functionality:
• Flow based—All frames between source and destination follow the same links for a given flow. That is,
• Exchange based—The first frame in an exchange picks a link and subsequent frames in the exchange
Figure 13: SID1 and DID1-Based Load Balancing, on page 222
destination ID1 (DID1) based load balancing works. When the first frame in a flow is received on an interface
for forwarding, link 1 is selected. Each subsequent frame in that flow is sent over the same link. No frame in
SID1 and DID1 utilizes link 2.
• E ports and TE ports
• F ports and NP ports
• TF ports and TNP ports
Cisco MDS 9000 Series NX-OS Fabric Configuration
whichever link is selected for the first exchange of the flow is used for all subsequent exchanges.
follow the same link. However, subsequent exchanges can use a different link. This provides more
granular load balancing while preserving the order of frames for each exchange.
Guide.
illustrates how source ID 1 (SID1) and
Cisco MDS 9000 Series Interfaces Configuration Guide, Release 8.x
Load Balancing
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