RE: [Xen-users] Xen on a Server with Multiple Network Interfaces and Network Performance

[Tait Clarridge <Tait.Clarridge@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Hi everyone,

>I have a server with high RAM and CPU and four NICs. I just wonder what's the 
>best solution to configure >Xen networking somehow that maximum performane and 
>network utilization gained. I know that I have >some options like bonding NICs 
>at the OS level ... but what about Xen? is it enough to use bonding along 
>>with one Xen bridge or is it possible to correspond for example a Dom-U with 
>a NIC directly in case of >having few Dom-U s? or any other solution...

>Thanks for any comments.

Hello,

It depends on a few things. 

First, depending on the storage solution you have in place for your VMs you 
could either bond all 4 NICs for the host, or bond 2 for accessing the storage 
destination and bond the other 2 for guest operations. You could also bond 3 
NICs for domUs and have one NIC for a sort of management port away from the 
bandwidth of the 3 NIC bond if you are using locally/attached storage (but you 
might as well make it a 4 pair bundle).

I am not sure about having specific bridges for specific domUs.. it would work 
but I don't know if you want to do it this way incase the network goes down on 
one interface and that domU becomes unresponsive.

What we have done here in the past is create a 4 nic bond that is a VLAN trunk 
then have a startup script that brings up the VLAN interfaces and bridges them 
for use by domUs. The throughput is good with a 4 NIC bond, and if one of the 
links goes down because of some sort of failure you have the other 3 to rely on.

That help?

Tait



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