PRO 1000 NIC teaming w/ProSet

[idata]

Hello,

Our current Exchange servers have 2 Intel PRO 1000's in a Switch Fault Tolerance mode. There are no IP's assigned to the individual NIC's. There is a single IP assigned to the team. No problems.

Some in my group are proposing assigning IP's to each NIC and the virtual NIC for our upcoming Exchange 2007 servers.I don't see any benefit. I just see it adding more complexity and requiring 3 times as many IP addresses.Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Steve

[idata]

Steve,

Without more information, my "best guess" for the recommendation would be with regard to the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 "Always On" solution. This solution is a clustering solution (CCR) where there is a public network connection (virtual) of the active and passive servers and connection for the heartbeat between the active and passive servers through a private network connection with separate network-addressing scheme.

A couple of links I found that goes into more discussion regarding CCR:

http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=744 http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=744

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/08/09/428642.aspx http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2006/08/09/428642.aspx

Other than that, I would need more information with regard to the "why" of the recommendation to be of more assistance. Does this help you?

Don

[JUSTIN_W_Intel]

Hi,

Once adapters are added to a team the IP addresses assigned to the individual ports are no longer relevant. The team's virtual adapter controls the traffic to & from the individual ports. After creating a team, assigning IPs to the individual adapters won't result in any benefit.

-Justin