"salsafreak" <salsafreak@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:35BAB044-E540-4E70-AEB2-4424C3EA7C4B@microsoft.com...
> Our failover SQL cluster is a two-node single instance environment - SQL
> 2000
> Enterprise SP4 on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. We're currently using
> NIC
> teaming to give us some hardware redundancy since the blade has two
> Broadcom
> NICs on it: one for the hearbeat private network and the other that
> connects
> to the public network. Our understanding is that Microsoft discourages
> this
> set up and will ask that you disable teaming when troubleshooting cluster
> issues.
>
> My questions:
> 1. What issues are associated with NIC teaming and, if not this, what
> other
> alternatives are there to minimize a single-point-of-failure (if the one
> NIC
> that connects to the public network goes down, your cluster is down)?
> 2. Why does Microsoft not want you to use NIC teaming?
>
> Any ideas will be appreciated.
> Thanks,
> Raul

"salsafreak" <salsafreak@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:CC5D2BCB-011A-4FF7-AB13-0633A3BC396A@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for your reply. Actually, given our hardware constraints (a blade
> with two physical NICs), we're wondering what are the concerns of teaming
> up
> both physical NICs to create two VLANs - one for the heartbeat and one for
> the public network. Given this setup and our goal of achieving
> redundancy,
> what comments would you have on this?
>
> "Geoff N. Hiten" wrote:
>
>> NIC teaming is definitely NOT recommended for the heartbeat network. I
>> have
>> found it useful on the public network(s). Disabling NIC teaming is a
>> first
>> step in troubleshooting a cluster because it simplifies the setup, not
>> because it is inherently unstable.
>>
>> --
>> Geoff N. Hiten
>> Senior SQL Infrastructure Consultant
>> Microsoft SQL Server MVP
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "salsafreak" <salsafreak@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:35BAB044-E540-4E70-AEB2-4424C3EA7C4B@microsoft.com...
>> > Our failover SQL cluster is a two-node single instance environment -
>> > SQL
>> > 2000
>> > Enterprise SP4 on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise. We're currently
>> > using
>> > NIC
>> > teaming to give us some hardware redundancy since the blade has two
>> > Broadcom
>> > NICs on it: one for the hearbeat private network and the other that
>> > connects
>> > to the public network. Our understanding is that Microsoft discourages
>> > this
>> > set up and will ask that you disable teaming when troubleshooting
>> > cluster
>> > issues.
>> >
>> > My questions:
>> > 1. What issues are associated with NIC teaming and, if not this, what
>> > other
>> > alternatives are there to minimize a single-point-of-failure (if the
>> > one
>> > NIC
>> > that connects to the public network goes down, your cluster is down)?
>> > 2. Why does Microsoft not want you to use NIC teaming?
>> >
>> > Any ideas will be appreciated.
>> > Thanks,
>> > Raul
>>
>>