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Santosh Chandavaram
Asked: 2010-02-05 13:01:22 +0800 CST

How can I use multiple NICs on Windows Server 2008 host with one static IP?

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I have Windows Server 2008 running on Dell PowerEdge 1425 SC. The unit has two NICs and I want to use them in a clustered mode for maximum efficiency (throughput) to avoid bottlenecks.

Do I need to use third party tools or does windows have any built-in tools to achieve this?

windows-server-2008 networking ip nic

4 Answers

  1. If your switch and NICs support it, you can do bonding. What make/model is the switch and the NICs? If it's server-class hardware, most of those can do it, using their drivers. Read the documentation for the server NICs and your switch that it plugs into.

    Have you performed any testing on your environment to determine if LAN throughput actually is at risk of being a bottleneck?

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  2. The important question here is: Does a bottleneck exist as a result of the current configuration? If not, then why are you trying to implement a solution for a problem that doesn't exist?

    I'm not going to buy hurricane insurance if I live in Iowa.

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  3. Here are the docs for Broadcom NICs: link text

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  4. You might want to review this article on "Using the multiple NICs of your File Server running Windows Server 2008 (and 2008 R2)" at http://blogs.technet.com/b/josebda/archive/2010/09/03/using-the-multiple-nics-of-your-file-server-running-windows-server-2008-and-2008-r2.aspx

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