{"id":14057,"date":"2013-01-15T13:36:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T13:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14057"},"modified":"2013-01-15T13:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T13:36:00","slug":"windows-server-2012-nic-teaming-part-6-support-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14057","title":{"rendered":"Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 6 \u2013 Support Policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 1 \u2013 Back To Basics<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 2 \u2013 What\u2019s What?<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 3 \u2013 Switch Connection Modes<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 4 \u2013 Load Distribution<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 5 \u2013 Configuration Matrix<\/a><\/p>\n

Windows Server 2012 NIC Teaming Part 6 \u2013 NIC Teaming In The Virtual Machine<\/a><\/p>\n

This post is going to focus on support policies.  I expect most mistakes in NIC teaming will be where people try to do things that are not supported.  I want to summarise the support policies here.  This content, once again, is taken from Microsoft\u2019s document on NIC teaming<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Feature Support<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are lots of networking features in Windows Server 2012.  Some support NIC teaming, some work great with NIC teaming, some (like SR-IOV) ignore NIC teaming in the host but are fine with NIC teaming in the guest OS, and some flat out do not support NIC teaming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Feature<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Comments<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Datacenter Bridging (DCB)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Works below NIC Teaming in the NIC so is supported if the team members support it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

IPsec Task Offload (IPsecTO)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported if all team members support it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Large Send Offload (LSO)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported if all team members support it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Receive side coalescing (RSC)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported in hosts if any of the team members support it. Not supported through Hyper-V switches.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Receive side scaling (RSS)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

NIC teaming supports RSS in the host. The Windows Server 2012 TCP\/IP stack programs the RSS information directly to the Team members. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Receive-side Checksum offloads (IPv4, IPv6, TCP)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported if any of the team members support it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

NIC team members cannot support RDMA because the protocol bypasses the networking stack.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Single root I\/O virtualization (SR-IOV)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

You cannot do NIC teaming with SR-IOV enabled NICs.  Do the teaming in the guest OS with 2 Hyper-V external switches.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

TCP Chimney Offload <\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Not supported through a Windows Server 2012 team.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Transmit-side Checksum offloads (IPv4, IPv6, TCP)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported if all team members support it.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Virtual Machine Queues (VMQ)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported when teaming is installed under the Hyper-V switch.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

QoS in host\/native OSs<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Supported, but use of minimum bandwidth policies will degrade throughput through a team.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Virtual Machine QoS (VM-QoS)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

VM-QoS is affected by the load distribution algorithm used by NIC Teaming. For best results use HyperVPorts load distribution mode.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

802.1X authentication<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Not compatible with many switches. Should not be used with NIC Teaming.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Team Members<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Between 1 and 32 team members (2 in a guest OS NIC team) on the Windows Server 2012 hardware compatibility list (WHQL or logo\u2019d).  The NICs can be of mixed model and manufacturer.  <\/p>\n

The active team members can be of different speed, but must be operating at the same speed.  A hot-spare NIC (in a 2-team-member team) maybe run at a different speed than the active team members.<\/p>\n

You cannot use NICs other than Ethernet in your team \u2013 no Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.<\/p>\n

Guest OS NIC Teams<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

See my previous post on Guest OS NIC teaming<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The preferred <\/em>(that is, not the only way, just the preferred way) to support multiple VLANs in a single VM is to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Create multiple vNICs in the VM, one per required VLAN<\/li>\n
  2. Enable trunking on the physical switch(es)<\/li>\n
  3. Configure a VLAN ID for each virtual NIC, one per required VLAN<\/li>\n
  4. Rename the virtual NICs (the VLAN ID as part of the name) using Rename-NetAdapter<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Teaming<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

    You cannot create a team made up of other teams.  You cannot use the team interface of another NIC teaming technology as a WS2012 team member or vice versa.<\/p>\n

    Microsoft says:<\/p>\n

    \n

    \u2026 it is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED<\/b> that no system administrator ever run two teaming solutions at the same time on the same server.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    In other words, don\u2019t use HP\/Dell\/Intel\/Broadcom NIC teaming on a machine where you intend to use WS2012 NIC teaming.  And remember \u2013 Microsoft does not support any 3rd party NIC teaming and never has.<\/p>\n

    You cannot create a NIC team that is made up of management OS NIC teams. MPIO is not NIC teaming and we can use MPIO for multiple management OS virtual NICs for iSCSI.<\/em>  <\/p>\n

    MAC Address and Switch Independent\/Address Hash Teams<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

    This is an odd one.  Remember that this type of team receives inbound traffic on a single IP team member?  That\u2019s because it uses a single MAC address to register the IP address.  Removing the primary<\/em> team member from the team, and reusing it for something else on the network can cause a MAC address conflict with unpredictable results.  To prevent\/resolve this, disable and re-enable the team interface \u2013 that causes the team to pick a new MAC address to register on the network.<\/p>\n

    VLANs<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

    To support VLANs on the NIC team or in guests:<\/p>\n