topic Re: NVMe load balancing between nodes in Network and Storage Protocols

NVMe load balancing between nodes

FrankWest — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:40:19 GMT

Hi,

we have a 2-node AFF-A250 running ontap 9.14.1. I'm experimenting with NVMe over TCP and have a question:

how can you load balance namespaces between the 2 nodes? When creating a namespace it's creates the volume automatically and chooses the aggregate by itself. How can you ensure that the NVMe namespace load is evenly distributed between the 2 nodes in the cluster?

Re: NVMe load balancing between nodes

elementx — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:07:34 GMT

> NVMe LIFs and namespaces must be hosted on the same node.

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap/nvme/support-limitations.html#additional-limitations

Re: NVMe load balancing between nodes

FrankWest — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:34:52 GMT

Hi,

I have 4 lifs. 2 lifs per node for NVMe. Those were created after entering the 4 IP addresses when creating the SVM.

Re: NVMe load balancing between nodes

elementx — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 03:08:46 GMT

That still fits within limitations described in that limitation, IMO.

*Within* a node load balancing to the same volume may be possible and happening (I haven't used NVMe/TCP, so I don't know for sure), but that wouldn't be your ask which is load-balancing to the same namespace *across* different nodes.

Re: NVMe load balancing between nodes

jaikumar — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 21:22:40 GMT

Only way is to loadbalance between NVMe TCP IO workloads between 2 Nodes is use of Volume Move, Volume is NonDisruptive ( we set ana transition ).

--
Note:

NVMe is still Active/Passive on both ASA and AFF.
Minimum 1 NVMe TCP LIF on Namespace owning Node and its HA Partner
We can use NVMe Host Priority If wanted throttle the IO or QoS
We dont Support NVMe Namespace Move
And may be use namespace statistics to IO workload between the Node.