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PowerScale: Network Design Considerations
Executive summary Network architecture design Latency, bandwidth, and throughput Ethernet flow control SyncIQ considerations Quality of Service (QoS) Software-Defined Networking PowerScale OneFS ports SmartConnect considerations Ethernet, MTU, and IP overhead Access Zones best practices Source-Based Routing considerations Isilon 6th generation 1 GbE interfaces
Isilon 6th generation 1 GbE interfaces
Intelligent Platform Management Interface IPv6 OneFS host-based firewall Network troubleshooting Appendix A: Supported network optics and transceivers Appendix B: Technical support and resources

Isilon 6th generation 1 GbE interfaces

Isilon 6th generation 1 GbE interfaces

  • The Isilon Gen 6 platform provides a single 1 GbE interface per node. The original intent of the interface was to provide SSH access to the cluster. However, against best practice, many cluster configurations use these interfaces for data access, either intentionally or unintentionally.

    The 1 GbE interface was not designed for data transfer because the chipset does not support TCP Segmentation Offload (TSO) and Large Receive Offload (LRO), increasing the chances of dropped packets, port flapping, and other performance issues. TSO and LRO are available on the 10 GbE and 40 GbE ports, which are optimized for data traffic.

    Note: The 1 GbE interfaces on Isilon Gen 6 nodes should not be used for data transfer under any circumstances. During the initial cluster configuration, if possible, do not configure the 1 GbE interface. If the interface must be enabled, it should only be used for WebUI and SSH access.

    As a best practice, the 1 GbE interfaces should not be configured. During the initial cluster configuration, only configure the 10 GbE and 40 GbE interfaces. If the 1 GbE interface must be used for the initial cluster configuration, after the cluster is configured, remove the 1 GbE interfaces from all IP pools.

    If the 1 GbE interfaces must be configured:

    • Configure the interfaces on a separate dedicated VLAN or subnet.
    • The 1 GbE interfaces should not share an IP pool with the 10 GbE and 40 GbE interfaces.
    • Configure a Gateway Priority for the 1 GbE interfaces subnet. Set the priority to the highest value of all the cluster’s subnets, ensuring the 1 GbE interfaces only carry traffic under scenarios where all the other cluster interfaces are unavailable.
    • Consider disabling SMB3 Multi-Channel (MC). During the client connection process, SMB3 MC provides all IP addresses across subnets, including the 1 GbE interfaces.

    Clusters using the 1 GbE interfaces for anything other than WebUI and SSH access experience overall performance degradation. Protocol performance suffers if traffic is routed through the 1 GbE interface. SyncIQ reports random failures because it might communicate through the 1 GbE interfaces, even if a policy is configured not to use those interfaces. Performance degradation might also affect authentication, SRS, CEE, anti-virus, and CloudPools.

    Another factor to consider for leaving the 1 GbE interface unconfigured is that starting with OneFS release 8.0, the bge driver for the 1 GbE interface increments InputDiscards for unwanted packets, such as multicast and spanning-tree packets. The InputDiscards show as errors under the netstat -in command, complicating the cluster network monitoring.