fast data networks play a majer in high performance computing for mode interconnects, network filesystems or blockdevices and distributed network applications.
with the rising demand for compute power, larger amount of data is transferred and the existing Ethernet connection speed become insufficient.
Often it is costly to update the whole network infrastructuec only to remove individual bottlenecks in the existing configuration.
Ethernet bonding is a method to bind several independent Ethernet links to a single.
virtual one and therefor provides a good compromise in order to add network bandwidth on critical links.
This paper dicusses the actual state of Linux Ethernet network bonding in the field of hige performance networking,storage and client root filesystem provisioning.
It compares the different bonding modes regarding performance, throughput and balanc of traffic flows and present recommendations for certain network configurations.