Network Interface Card (NIC) redundancy is a technique of grouping physical network adapters to improve performance and increase uptime. There are two main methods of achieving NIC redundancy: load balancing and NIC teaming.

Load Balancing

Load balancing is a popular method of achieving NIC redundancy. It involves the use of two or more NIC cards to independently send and receive network traffic. This allows the transmission of data to be distributed across the multiple NIC cards. The main benefit of load balancing is that it increases the speed and throughput of a network, as each card has to handle less traffic, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.

NIC Teaming

NIC teaming is a related technique that also uses multiple NICs to increase network performance and uptime. By teaming multiple NICs, data can be transmitted and received by multiple cards at once, improving the speed and reliability of a network. The main difference between NIC teaming and load balancing is that with NIC teaming, the cards are essentially working in sync, rather than independently, which allows for more flexibility and improved performance.

Using both of these methods of NIC redundancy can ensure that your network is running as efficiently as possible. By distributing the workload across multiple NIC cards, you can ensure higher performance and uptime and reduce the risk of outages due to single point of failure.

Date Updated: May 19, 2023