Xen users - Sep 2009 - Xen on a Server with Multiple Network Interfaces and Network Performance

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.


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>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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