Dell Broadcom NetXtreme Family of Adapters User Manual page 165

Question:
What is the maximum number of ports that can be teamed together?
Answer: Up to 8 ports can be assigned to a team.
Question:
What is the maximum number of teams that can be configured on the same system?
Answer: Up to 4 teams can be configured on the same system.
Why does my team lose connectivity for the first 30 to 50 seconds after the primary adapter is restored
Question:
(fallback)?
Because Spanning Tree Protocol is bringing the port from blocking to forwarding. You must enable Port Fast or
Answer:
Edge Port on the switch ports connected to the team or use LiveLink to account for the STP delay.
Question:
Can I connect a team across multiple switches?
Smart Load Balancing can be used with multiple switches because each physical adapter in the system uses a
Answer:
unique Ethernet MAC address. Link Aggregation and Generic Trunking cannot operate across switches because
they require all physical adapters to share the same Ethernet MAC address.
Question: How do I upgrade the intermediate driver (BASP)?
The intermediate driver cannot be upgraded through the Local Area Connection Properties. It must be
Answer:
upgraded using the Setup installer.
Question:
How can I determine the performance statistics on a virtual adapter (team)?
Answer: In Broadcom Advanced Control Suite 3, click the BASP Statistics tab for the virtual adapter.
Question:
Can I configure NLB and teaming concurrently?
Answer: Yes, but only when running NLB in a multicast mode (NLB is not supported with MS Cluster Services).
Question:
Should both the backup system and client systems that are backed up be teamed?
Because the backup system is under the most data load, it should always be teamed for link aggregation and
Answer:
failover. A fully redundant network, however, requires that both the switches and the backup clients be
teamed for fault tolerance and link aggregation.
During backup operations, does the adapter teaming algorithm load balance data at a byte-level or a session-
Question:
level?
When using adapter teaming, data is only load balanced at a session level and not a byte level to prevent out-
Answer:
of-order frames. Adapter teaming load balancing does not work the same way as other storage load balancing
mechanisms such as EMC PowerPath.
Is there any special configuration required in the tape backup software or hardware to work with adapter
Question:
teaming?
No special configuration is required in the tape software to work with teaming. Teaming is transparent to tape
Answer:
backup applications.