> I believe this is a limitation of all the current trunking
> technologies
> (at least, the one that Sun, Cisco, NetApp, and 3Com use for 100bT in
> any case).
>
> IMHO, if the filer is to be primarily used as a backend for one large
> ORACLE box, and you need bandwidth between them, put gigabit NICs in
> at each end. You could even just cross-over the fibre cable for a
> point-point connection if you didn't need gigabit between anything
> else at the start (and use the 100bT onboard to talk to the other
> clients).
Exactly. Many EtherChannel and EtherChannel-style trunking algorithms
use MAC addresses to distribute the data down the pipes of a trunk.
Therefore, if you only have 1 client, these implementations will only
use one pipe. NetApp simply reflects the response down the same
pipe the request came in on. So if you only have 1 client, Gbit is
the way to go...nice big pipe. You get no throughput advantadge
from a multi-trunk due to these switch algorithms.
Hope this helps.
-- Adam Fox, CCNA, CNX - Ethernet
NetApp Professional Services, NC
adamfox(a)netapp.com