Network clients use file-serving physical ports to access Enterprise Virtual Server (EVS) instances on cluster nodes. These ports are commonly grouped together in a link aggregation to increase redundancy and throughput of data.
The maximum number of ports that you can include in an aggregation is dependent on the number of physical ports provided by the storage platform. All ports in the aggregation must be of the same type and speed.
Link aggregations can increase bandwidth capability and create resilient and redundant links. Aggregations also provide load balancing, where the processing and communications activity is distributed across several links in a trunk.
An aggregation can be static or use Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP).
Using LACP for link aggregations
The VSP One File server manages the LACP relationship between switches. By using LACP, the server determines which ports are in use and can bring up alternative ports during a failure. For example, if the server does not receive LACP messages from the primary switch within the timeout period, the server can use the ports connected to the secondary switch instead.
The server supports short (one second) and long (30 second) LACP timers. A short timeout is three seconds (three x one second). A long timeout is 90 seconds (three x 30 seconds). The link times out after three missed messages. Long timeouts are a best practice to upgrade upstream network devices without causing path failover on the server. The default setting is a short timeout. To change the timeout setting, use the applicable lacp-set-timeout CLI command as described in the command reference for the file storage platform.