Does HP A5500 and HP A5800 support Microsoft NLB

[pleas*ing]

Hello friends, I wanted to know that A5500 and A5800 support Microsoft NLB or not, earlier it was not supporting it, so it might have started to support now, does anyone knows anything about it then please tell me about it. Even there is any A series supporting it then please tell me. Thank you.

[Pinlunk]

Even I was having a doubt about it and send a mail to HP to get some answer, in the feedback from the HP technical people told me that the Microsoft NLB multicast is supported on A5800 which is been available with the firmware release R1206, so you can the firmware and it will support it.

[Killer-Boy]

Even I was having a doubt about it and send a mail to HP to get some answer, in the feedback from the HP technical people told me that the Microsoft NLB multicast is supported on A5800 which is been available with the firmware release R1206, so you can the firmware and it will support it.

I wanted to know that the NLB support will be supported on other switched also or not? Such what about the A5500 EI / A5500 SI or A5120 EI / A5120 SI, do you have any information about it? Also explain that how does it work.

[Mayoor]

Let me tell you about Microsoft NLB, well it will work in two different ways, unicast and multicast. If you are having the NLB in multicast mode working then only thing you need to do is configure a static multicast mac-address entry in all of the port in which the server is connected, as a static ARP resolution to the virtual IP and MAC address of the NLB. It will be having some of the limitation for most of player, like the 3Com/H3C/HP, even added more info about that it works properly in L2, when there is routing involved, it works unstable.

[Roey]

Even I would like to say something, if the NLB is working in the unicast mode then you are able to enter the command undo arp check enable which actually disable the MAC Address learning in the ports, it force the switch to act as hub, which is not good at all. There is one alternative for it that if you can configure the server in aggregated mode then it will work smoothly aggregating the ports manually in static mode with the help of Bridge-aggregation feature.

[Naq]

If you found that the server was unstable then it means that the NLB feature is working in multicast mode, it is been routing among VLANs, if you required doing it then better doing it from another switch, in spite of using that one which the server with NLB is directly attached.

[Lisa Boney]

I have already gone through with the same problem and also having the solution for it, is that you need to attach the NLB server to a switch working at L2 and then you setup the inter-VLAN routing in another switch, which will make it proper for you.