5.5 HP StorageWorks X9300 Network Storage Gateway Administrator Guide (AW539-96007, March 2011)

Maintaining networks
Cluster and user network interfaces
X9000 Software supports the following logical network interfaces:
• Cluster network interface. This network interface carries management console traffic, traffic between
file serving nodes, and traffic between file serving nodes and clients. A cluster can have only one
cluster interface. For backup purposes, each file serving node and management console can have
two cluster NICs.
• User network interface. This network interface carries traffic between file serving nodes and clients.
Multiple user network interfaces are permitted.
The cluster network interface was created for you when your cluster was installed. For clusters with
an agile management console configuration, a virtual interface is used for the cluster network interface.
One or more user network interfaces may also have been created, depending on your site's
requirements. You can add user network interfaces as necessary.
Adding user network interfaces
Although the cluster network can carry traffic between file serving nodes and either NFS/CIFS or
X9000 clients, you may want to create user network interfaces to carry this traffic. If your cluster must
accommodate a mix of NFS/CIFS clients and X9000 clients, or if you need to segregate client traffic
to different networks, you will need one or more user networks. In general, it is better to assign a user
network for NFS/CIFS traffic because the cluster network cannot host the virtual interfaces (VIFs)
required for NFS/CIFS failover. HP recommends that you use a Gigabit Ethernet port (or faster) for
user networks.
When creating user network interfaces for file serving nodes, keep in mind that nodes needing to
communicate for file system coverage or for failover must be on the same network interface. Also,
nodes set up as a failover pair must be connected to the same network interface.
HP recommends that the default network be routed through the base User Network interface.
For a highly available cluster, HP recommends that you put NFS traffic on a dedicated user network
and then set up automated failover for it (see “Setting up automated failover” on page 27). This
method prevents interruptions to NFS traffic. If the cluster interface is used for NFS traffic and that
interface fails on a file serving node, any NFS clients using the failed interface to access a mounted
file system will lose contact with the file system because they have no knowledge of the cluster and
cannot reroute requests to the standby for the node.
Link aggregation and virtual interfaces
When creating a user network interface, you can use link aggregation to combine physical resources
into a single VIF. VIFs allow you to provide many named paths within the larger physical resource,
each of which can be managed and routed independently, as shown in the following diagram. See
the network interface vendor documentation for any rules or restrictions required for link aggregation.
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