To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of server, storage, networking, and software resources. It must be simple to deploy and able to quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need access to, and the ability to take advantage of, broad expertise and proven best practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance, and more. IBM® PureFlex™ System is part of the IBM PureSystems™ family of expert integrated systems. It combines advanced IBM hardware and software along with patterns of expertise and integrates them into three optimized configurations that are simple to acquire and deploy. With the PureFlex System, you can achieve faster time to value. If you want a pre-configured, pre-integrated infrastructure with integrated management and cloud capabilities, factory tuned from IBM with x86 and Power hybrid solution, IBM PureFlex System is the answer. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, the examples use a Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch, although any configurations should also apply to the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switch too. However, it is wise to check as there might be minor differences. This book also covers the different variations for the implementation of these use cases when you use Cisco Catalyst Series Switches.

To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of server, storage, networking, and software resources that are simple to deploy and can quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need access to, and the ability to take advantage of, broad expertise and proven best practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance, and more. IBM® PureFlex™ System, which is a part of the IBM PureSystems™ family of expert integrated systems, combines advanced IBM hardware and software along with patterns of expertise and integrates them into three optimized configurations that are simple to acquire and deploy so that you can achieve faster time to value. If you want a preconfigured, preintegrated infrastructure with integrated management and cloud capabilities, factory tuned from IBM with x86 and Power Systems™ hybrid solution, IBM PureFlex System is the answer. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, which is aimed at system and network administrators, we show the design and architecture, how to configure hosts and switches, maintain, and troubleshoot using the IBM Flex System™ Ethernet I/O modules (EN2091 1Gb Ethernet Scalable Switch and EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch).

To meet today's complex and ever-changing business demands, you need a solid foundation of server, storage, networking and software resources that is simple to deploy and can quickly and automatically adapt to changing conditions. You also need access to, and the ability to take advantage of, broad expertise and proven best practices in systems management, applications, hardware maintenance and more. IBM® PureFlex™ System, which is a part of the IBM PureSystems™ family of expert integrated systems, combines advanced IBM hardware and software along with patterns of expertise and integrates them into three optimized configurations that are simple to acquire and deploy so you can achieve faster time to value. If you want a pre-configured, pre-integrated infrastructure with integrated management and cloud capabilities, factory tuned from IBM with x86 and Power hybrid solution, IBM PureFlex System is the answer. In this IBM Redbooks® publication, we use EX4500 core switches to demonstrate interoperability with the System Networking switches (RackSwitch™ G8264 top of rack switch and the Flex system fabric EN4093 10Gb scalable switch). We also describe a redundant environment using QFX3500 switches running IBM Virtual-Link Aggregation Group (MC-LAG/vLAG) and Juniper Multi- Chassis-Link Aggregation Group.

This IBM® Redbooks® publication describes important networking concepts and industry standards that are used to support high availability on IBM System z®. Some of the networking standards described here are VLANs, VLAN trunking, link aggregation, virtual switches, VNICs, and load-balancing. We examine the various aspects of network setups and introduce the main Linux on System z networking commands and configuration files. We describe the management of network interface parameters, assignment of addresses to a network interface, and usage of the ifconfig command to configure network interfaces. We provide an overview of connectivity options available on the System z platform. We also describe high availability concepts and building a high availability solution using IBM Tivoli® System Automation. We also provide the implementation steps necessary to build a redundant network connections set up between an IBM z/VM® system and the external network switches using two Open Systems Adapter-Express 3 (OSA-Express 3) adapters with 10 Gb Ethernet ports. We describe the tests performed in our lab environment. The objectives of these tests were to gather information about performance and failover from the perspective of a real scenario, where the concepts of described in this book were applied. This book is focused on information that is practical and useful for readers with experience in network analysis and engineering networks, System z and Linux systems administrators, especially for readers that administer networks in their day-to-day activities. For additional reading: A Technote is availalble that explains changes to using channel bonding interfaces introduced with SLES 11 SP 2. It can be found at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/tips1000.html?Open