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Article Number: 000151063


What are the differences between Adaptive Load Balancing, Fast EtherChannel, and Adapter Fault Tolerance?

Summary: This article explains the difference between Adaptive Load Balancing, Fast EtherChannel, and Adapter Fault Tolerance are network adapter teaming methods, which involves the use of multiple network adapters. ...

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Article Content


Symptoms

Definitions of Teaming Methods

Adaptive Load Balancing, Fast EtherChannel, and Adapter Fault Tolerance are network adapter teaming methods, which involves the use of multiple network adapters.
Adaptive Load Balancing
Adaptive Load Balancing (ALB) developed by Intel, balances outgoing server traffic among as many as four network adapters.  This enables server bandwidth to be increased in 100Mbps increments, up to 400Mbps.  Of course, multiple adapters can be used in a server even if they don''t support ALB, but the load must then be distributed between them by segmenting the network - a costly and time-consuming task. ALB provides a much simpler and more efficient solution.

Cause

Adapter Fault Tolerance
Adapter Fault Tolerance (AFT) works in conjunction with Adaptive Load Balancing and Fast EtherChannel to safeguard the vital network link to the server. If one or more links fail, for whatever reason, all server traffic is automatically transferred to the remaining network adapters. The shift is transparent to applications and users. So even in the event of a broken or loose cable, a hub or switch port failure, or adapter hardware breakdown, the server stays up and running.

Resolution

Fast EtherChannel

Fast EtherChannel (FEC), developed by Cisco, is similar to Adaptive Load Balancing, but must be supported in the switch as well as in the adapters. FEC balances the traffic load in both directions, boosting throughput for data received by the server as well as data transmitted from the server. It therefore delivers scalable bandwidth in 200Mbps increments, up to 800Mbps at full duplex.



Article Properties


Affected Product

Legacy Networking

Last Published Date

23 Apr 2021

Version

5

Article Type

Solution