topic Re: One data LIF per node, per SVM? in ONTAP Discussions

One data LIF per node, per SVM?

heightsnj — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 13:30:06 GMT

"One data LIF per node, per SVM" this is suggested by multiple articles.

My question is what if I need to have multiple VLAN connections, then I have to create multipel corresponding LIF's per node and per SVM. Would that have any issues with that?

Or it really should be "One data LIF per node, per SVM for each VLAN"

Thank you for your inputs!

Re: One data LIF per node, per SVM?

AlexDawson — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 04:09:32 GMT

The importance of that advice relates to how you're using the system.

If you have segmented Department A into SVM A on VLAN A, and Department B into SVM B on VLAN B, you don't need to have VLAN B IPs on SVM A.

If you go further and have all of SVM A's volumes hosted on Node 1/Node 2 HA pair of a cluster, and all of SVM B's on Node 3/Node 4 HA pair, there's no need to have IPs for SVM B on Node 1 and Node 2.

Hope this helps clarify the advice. Please feel free to ask any follow up questions!

Re: One data LIF per node, per SVM?

heightsnj — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 21:04:25 GMT

You are right, if Dept A has the network infrastructure and able to reach VLAN B for Dept B.

In my case, it is different.

Using your example. SVM A has VLAN A for Dept A, and SVM B has VLAN B for Dept B. both SVM's and VLAN's host own Datastores and yet in respective two seperated Layer-2 and non-routeble networks. I would want to have Dept A to access datastores in SVM B. In this case, I would have to create LIF's in SVM B, and these new LIF's have to be created in VLAN A. Otherwise, Dept A cannot access Dept B's datastores.

So, in this case, there are two data LIF's per node, per SVM. Any thoughts on that?

Thanks!

Re: One data LIF per node, per SVM?

AlexDawson — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 21:29:56 GMT

Perfectly fine.

The one LIF per node per SVM is a minimum, not a maximum.

There is another school of thought which extends to one LIF per datastore - so if you move a datastore between nodes, you can move its hosting LIF. I have a post on my site at https://alexdawson.net/2016/08/ontap-why-and-why-not-to-have-one-lif-per-nfs-volume/ discussing why you might or might not want to do that.

Hope this helps!