IP network multipathing

With IPMP, or IP network multipathing provides the Solaris operating system fault tolerance and load balancing on network interface cards ( NICs, network interface cards) for the virtual IP (VIP) address of a computer ready. Using IPMP two or more network cards are connected to the network, should be connected to the the computer. One of these interfaces is primarily active and the remaining secondary. If an error occurs in the primary interface, the Solaris system will automatically redirect the network communications on a secondary interface.

IPMP is comparable to the Teaming network cards under Windows. Here are working two or more NICs together in a team. Each network card has indeed still have their own IP address on the network, but the composite is (ie the device with its various network cards) provided by IPMP with a VIP. For this reason, other computers that want to connect to the server, use this VIP.

Load balancing increases the bandwidth of the server, since the load is distributed to all NICs in the same IPMP group and thus more data throughput is possible. On Solaris, the daemon in.mpathd for IPMP is responsible.