AltaVault virtual appliance Data Interfaces question

[georgel]

Folks, could someone please clarify network mapping requirements for Data Interfaces in VA? Installation guide specifically states to map each of the four source networks to a separate destination networks, page 32. But if a Virtual infrastructure don’t' have or use 4 separate virtual networks, and has only one client network? Would this prevents OVF installation to complete? Would data interfaces have to be removed after OVF deployment or disabled inside AltaVault? None of the documents I found clearly describes role and management of network interfaces and acceptable configuration examples in such environments with a limited number of virtual network interfaces. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[chriswong · Accepted solution]

Hi,

The AltaVault data interfaces, as well as the management interface, are recommended but not required to be in different subnets or VLANs. Separating them by subnet helps to ensure traffic is targeted to the right interface, but if you have a flat network within your hypervisor don't worry about it. Assign them all to the same is fine, and won't stop the deployment of the virtual appliance.

There is a performance tuning guide available, if you wish to reach out to your NetApp sales rep they can get that over to you. I cannot post this however to the community portal. Sorry.

Regards,

Christopher

[netappmagic]

Hi Chris,

To follow up the question, for 4x10Gbit ports, to balance out data across two different network interfaces, can I utilize DNS RR and make connections in turn between two interfaces?

If yes, to ensure data will go through evenly between two, then two interfaces should be in two sperated routes. Correct? 

[chriswong]

AltaVault provides LACP, or virtual interface (VIF) in 802.3ad mode. This can be used to provide failover redundancy between networks. Each VIF would indeed have it's own network path/VLAN if required. I suppose you could perform DNS RR if you wanted on the individual links, but I've not heard nor seen anyone implement it this way so I'm not sure what if any behavioral effects could occur using it in this fashion.

Regards,

Christopher