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Oracle ZFS Storage ZS3-4
 
Sun ZFS Storage 7420
 
Sun ZFS Storage 7120
 

PLA-Support>Sun Systems>DISK>ZFS Storage>SN-DK: 7xxx NAS
 

In this Document

Goal

Solution

Details

Creating a VNIC "without" a VLAN ID for clustered controllers

Creating VNICs with the "same" VLAN ID for clustered controllers

References

Applies to:

Goal

 This document describes basic instructions on creating VNICs on Clustered ZFS Storage Appliance in clustered setup.

Solution

The biggest advantage of configuring VNIC on a clustered system is to use network in more efficiently as the traffic flows over the cable associated with the underlying active port on one head, as well as the underlying standby port on the other head. Which means we can now use the otherwise idle standby port from the cluster peer.

VNICs or Virtual Network Interface Cards, which allow single or aggregated Ethernet datalinks to be split into multiple virtual (Ethernet) datalinks.

VNICs can be optionally tagged with VLAN IDs, and can allow physical network port sharing in a cluster.

Before Proceeding further please note the following :

1. VNIC-based and VLAN-based datalinks cannot share the same VLAN ID.

2. A VNIC cannot be configured with an MTU value larger than that of the underlying datalink.

3. VLAN identifier is optional for VNICs

4. Configuring one instead of multiple VNICs over a given datalink ensures peak performance. Configuring multiple VNICs over a given device may impact the performance of all datalinks over that device by up to five percent, even when VNICs are not in use.  

If more than eight VNICs/VLANs are configured over a given datalink, performance may degrade significantly. 

5. If a datalink uses a VLAN ID, all datalink performance for that device may be impacted by an additional five percent

Details

Steps to create VNIC on a Clustered ZFS Storage Appliance.

Here the task of creating VNIC on a Cluster system are slightly different as compared to Single controller. It depends on whether you want to use VLAN ID or not.

Creating a VNIC "without" a VLAN ID for clustered controllers

Considering an Active/Active cluster configuration and cluster is in AKCS_CLUSTERED state. Then we will create an interface over a datalink and assign it to a head.

Later we will create VNIC on top of this datalink and then create a interface over this newly created VNIC and assign it to peer head.

1. When the cluster is in state AKCS_CLUSTERED, click the Datalinks  icon.
2. Optionally set name and MTU.
3. Choose a device from the Devices list and click "APPLY". The datalink appears in the Datalinks list.
4. Click the Interface  icon.
5. Set desired properties, choose the datalink previously created, and click "APPLY". The interface appears in the Interfaces list.
6. Click the Datalinks  icon.
7. Select the VNIC checkbox, optionally set name and MTU (equal to or less than the value in step 2), and click "APPLY". The new VNIC datalink appears in the Datalinks list.
8. Click the Interface  icon.
9. Set desired properties, choose the VNIC datalink previously created, and click "APPLY". The interface appears in the Interfaces list.
10. The running appliance network configuration has not yet changed. When you are finished configuring interfaces, click "APPLY" at the top to commit the configuration.
11. Click the Cluster tab. The two newly created interfaces appear in the Resource section with default owners.
12. Use the Owner pull-down list to assign one of the two interfaces to the other head and click "APPLY"

Creating VNICs with the "same" VLAN ID for clustered controllers

In this task we will create two VNICs with identical VLAN IDs on top of the same device datalink.

Considering an Active/Active cluster configuration and cluster is in AKCS_CLUSTERED state. 

Each VNIC is configured with an interface, and each interface is assigned to a different head. 

1. When the cluster is in state AKCS_CLUSTERED, click the Datalinks  icon.
2. Select the VNIC checkbox, optionally set name and MTU, set the VLAN ID, choose a device from the Devices list, and click "APPLY". The new VNIC datalink appears in the Datalinks list.
3. Click the Interface  icon.
4. Set desired properties, choose the VNIC datalink previously created, and click "APPLY". The interface appears in the Interfaces list.
5. Create another VNIC as described in steps 1 and 2 with the same Device and VLAN ID, and create an interface for it as described in steps 3 and 4.
6. The running appliance network configuration has not yet changed. When you are finished configuring interfaces, click "APPLY" at the top to commit the configuration.
7. Click the Cluster tab. The two newly created interfaces appear in the Resource section with default owners.
8. Use the Owner pull-down list to assign one of the two interfaces to the other head and click "APPLY".

References

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