Configuring NIC Teaming Load Balancing for Cisco UCS B-Series Blades in Cisco ACI

BE.

The Cisco best practices for configuring NIC teaming load balancing for Cisco UCS B-Series blades that are connected to the Cisco ACI leaf switches are as follows:

1. Enable LACP Active Mode: LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) is a standard method for bundling multiple physical links into a single logical link. LACP Active mode is recommended as it provides better control over the link aggregation process. In this mode, the switch sends LACP packets to the blade server, and the server responds with LACP packets to confirm the link aggregation. LACP Active mode is preferred over PAgP because it is an industry standard and is compatible with other vendor switches.

2. Enable MAC Pinning: MAC pinning is a feature that allows a switch to pin a MAC address to a specific link in a link aggregation group. This ensures that traffic from a particular MAC address is always sent over the same physical link, which helps to avoid out-of-order packet delivery and reduces the risk of packet loss. This feature is particularly useful for storage traffic or any other traffic that requires consistent and predictable delivery.

Therefore, the correct options are B (Enable LACP active mode) and E (Enable MAC pinning). The other options, A (Create vPC+), C (Create PAgP), and D (Create vPC), are not recommended as best practices for configuring NIC teaming load balancing for Cisco UCS B-Series blades connected to the Cisco ACI leaf switches.