NIC Teaming with route based on IP hash

[zenomorph]

Hi,

I have a query which I'm not sure about. We have setup vSphere teaming 3 NICs with Etherchannel on our Cisco core and "route based on IP hash" on the vSphere. Based on this configuration what I'd like to clarify is:

• I presume incoming traffic is not load balanced across the 3 NIC's

• out going traffic is load balanced based one "hash" of source IP packet address

but does this mean that if I team 3Gbic NICs if I have eg. 100MB of traffic leaving the vSphere for a particular server on the 3 teamed NICs does that mean the packets get spread across the 3NICs that is each NIC will carry 30MB's of traffic or am I interepreting this algorithm incorrectly.

I've also crossed check the configuration on the Core and based on the VMware KBs it seems correct.

I'm asking because I'm looking at the traffic on the 3NICs and some of the NICs don't seem to be carrying any traffic.

Many thanks

Zeno

[weinstein5]

• I presume incoming traffic is not load balanced across the 3 NIC's

That is correct

• out going traffic is load balanced based one "hash" of source IP packet address

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Not quite - the physical NIC is based on Hash of the source AND destination IPs -so if the VMs is communicating to the same server it will use the same physical NIC for all that traffic

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[JimKnopf99]

Hi,

look at this cisco articel. It describes the usage of your nic´s when configuring a portchannel.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk389/tk213/technologies_tech_note09186a0080094714.shtml

There you can see the LoadBalancing when using Port Channel with Cisco.

Frank