Network bonding or network teaming: Feature comparison
1 Environment #
This document applies to the following products and product versions:
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 15 SP3, 15 SP2, 15 SP1, 15 GA, 12 SP5, 12 SP4, 12 SP3
2 Bonding or teaming? #
Link aggregation is the general term for combining network connections to provide a logical layer. Channel teaming, Ethernet bonding, and port truncating are synonyms that refer to the same concept.
The original implementation of this concept is known as network bonding. The new implementation is known as network teaming. Both implementations can be used in parallel. Teaming is an alternative to bonding, not a replacement.
The main difference between bonding and teaming is that bonding is handled
exclusively in the kernel. Teaming includes a small set of kernel modules
that provide an interface for teamd instances, but
everything else is handled in user space.
Table 1: Feature comparison between bonding and teaming #
| Feature | Bonding | Teaming |
|---|---|---|
| broadcast, round-robin TX policy | yes | yes |
| active-backup TX policy | yes | yes |
| LACP (802.3ad) support | yes | yes |
| hash-based TX policy | yes | yes |
| user can set hash function | no | yes |
| TX load-balancing support (TLB) | yes | yes |
| TX load-balancing support for LACP | no | yes |
| Ethtool link monitoring | yes | yes |
| ARP link monitoring | yes | yes |
| NS/NA (IPV6) link monitoring | no | yes |
| RCU locking on TX/RX paths | no | yes |
| port prio and stickiness | no | yes |
| separate per-port link monitoring setup | no | yes |
| multiple link monitoring setup | limited | yes |
| VLAN support | yes | yes |
| multiple device stacking | yes | yes |
| Source: http://libteam.org/files/teamdev.pp.pdf | ||