Understanding second-level vifs on a single filer

About second-level vifs on a single filer

You use a second-level vif on a single filer to provide a standby multi-mode vif in case the primary vif fails. You can provide additional redundancy by using two switches configured for multiple-port connections and four or more interfaces on the filer.

Example of a second-level vif on a single filer

You can set up a filer with two two-link multi-mode vifs. Each vif is connected to a different switch capable of link aggregation over multiple ports. Next, you can set up a second-level single-mode vif that contains both of the multi-mode vifs.

When you configure the second-level vif using the vif create command, only one of the two multi-mode vifs is brought up as the active link. If all the underlying interfaces in the active vif fail, the second-level vif activates the link corresponding to the other vif.

In the following illustration, Secondlev is the single-mode second-level vif comprising the Firstlev1 and Firstlev2 vifs. Firstlev1 is initially the active interface; if Switch 1 drops both links, Switch 2 and Firstlev2 take over and maintain the connection to the network.