[Beowulf] Multiple NIC on a node

[Mark Hahn]

> So, if your application does a great deal of file I/O on the nodes, you
> might consider implementing a service network through the second network
> ports.

this is convenient, since if you use two nics with different subnets,
traffic will be segregated and non-interfering.

> However, if your application needs more total bandwidth on a
> single network, you will want to go with channel bonding. If the

besides being slightly trickier to configure, it also only gives you
higher _aggregate_ bandwidth.  any single flow between a pair of IPs
will not be faster than a single link.  bonding/teaming/link-aggregation
is mainly useful for inter-switch links and hosts like a fileserver
which are effectively a hotspot and can take advantage of multiple 
concurrent flows (again, where each flow is no faster than 1 link.)

in other words, there's no standard "raid0 of nics" ;)