I've inherited a network setup, where the NFS/Samba linux RAID server ("Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS") is serving everything over one NIC. As a result, the 1Gb network bandwidth is saturated.
Unfortunately, the entire subnet attaches to this server via it's direct IP.
I'm trying to find a load balancing solution where I can re-assign the current server IP address to a virtual server IP, and have traffic to that virtual IP load balanced across two or more NICs that reside within the same (actual NFS) server.
Currently, there's a traditional switch connecting all incoming ethernet cables, and only one cable going out to the server's NIC.
The only solution I have found so far is the Kemp LoadMaster LM-X3 hardware solution.
I've also looked into LACP, but I'm not clear that this would support a virtual IP. It seems to only aggregate the outgoing packets (or still require multiple NICs to have individual IPs). Although, perhaps for this use - it's fine if only outgoing packets are load balanced.
Are there better solutions available?