9.5.01 HP P4000 SAN Solution User Guide (AX696-96168, February 2012)

Using DHCP
A DHCP server becomes a single point of failure in your system configuration. If the DHCP server
goes offline, then IP addresses may be lost.
CAUTION: If you use DHCP, be sure to reserve statically assigned IP addresses for all storage
systems on the DHCP server. This is required, because management groups use unicast
communication.
NOTE: If you plan to bond the NICs, you must use a static IP address.
To set IP address using DHCP
1. Select from the list the interface to configure for use with DHCP.
2. Click Edit.
3. Select Obtain an address automatically using the DHCP/BOOTP protocol.
4. Click OK.
5. Click OK on the confirmation message.
6. Click OK on the message notifying you of the automatic log out.
NOTE: Wait a few moments for the IP address change to take effect.
Configuring network interface bonds
To ensure consistent failover characteristics and traffic distribution, use the same network bond
type in all the storage systems in a cluster. Network interface bonding provides high availability,
fault tolerance, load balancing and/or bandwidth aggregation for the network interface cards in
the storage system. Bonds are created by joining physical NICs into a single logical interface. This
logical interface acts as the master interface, controlling and monitoring the physical slave interfaces.
Bonding two interfaces for failover provides fault tolerance at the local hardware level for network
communication. Failures of NICs, Ethernet cables, individual switch ports, and/or entire switches
can be tolerated while maintaining data availability. Bonding two interfaces for aggregation
provides bandwidth aggregation and localized fault tolerance. Bonding the interfaces for load
balancing provides both load balancing and localized fault tolerance.
NOTE: The VSA does not support NIC bonding.
Depending on your storage system hardware, network infrastructure design, and Ethernet switch
capabilities, you can bond NICs in one of three ways:
• Active-Passive. You specify a preferred NIC for the bonded logical interface to use. If the
preferred NIC fails, then the logical interface begins using another NIC in the bond until the
preferred NIC resumes operation. When the preferred NIC resumes operation, data transfer
resumes on the preferred NIC.
• Link Aggregation Dynamic Mode. The logical interface uses both NICs simultaneously for data
transfer. This configuration increases network bandwidth, and if one NIC fails, the other
Using DHCP 55