Hi Mike,
Thank you for the feedback on the TCPIP performance tips.
I have had customers set this up but it is pretty rare in my experience despite this feature was introduced so long ago (2012). In the cases I had the opportunity to discus, the administrator found that he had several idle Ethernet interfaces and was attempting to make best use of them. In the case of iCluster, the ip address is used as a primary key in the metadata and so changing the ip address to the clustered node can not be done without removing and re-adding the node definition. It makes the process to changing to this from a traditional point to point a little more difficult. The requirement is that the IP handed to iCluster is a single IP that does not change. So in this case the aggregated ethernet or 'EtherChannel' concept and deployment does work with iCluster. They just need a router that supports the technology as well together with some planning.
On a side note, iCluster does allow for the entry of a DNS name rather than a hard IP address but I never deploy using a DNS entry in the cluster so I have little experience using a DNS name for the clustered node. Anyone that does use that option, I'd enjoy hearing how they benefit from that and how well it is working for them.
------------------------------
Mark Watts
Rocket Software
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 01-05-2021 08:45
From: Mike Warkentin
Subject: Aggregate Ethernet Lines
Hi Mark.
Nice article on the TCP/IP performance tips.
A question for you, have you noticed any customers starting to use Aggregate Ethernet Lines as per Tip: IBM i Aggregate Ethernet Lines l
I just wondered if you had any iCluster related advice regarding using them? Seems like it would help overall network resiliency.
Thanks.
------------------------------
Mike Warkentin
MidRange Computer Group
------------------------------