In a single-mode vif, only one of the interfaces in the vif is active. The other interfaces are on standby, ready to take over if the active interface fails. Failure means that the link status of the interface is down, which signals that the interface has lost connection with the switch.
There can be more than one interface on standby in a single-mode vif. If an active interface fails, your storage system randomly picks one of the standby interfaces to be the next active link. The active link is monitored and link failover is controlled by the storage system; therefore, single-mode vif does not require any switch configuration. It also does not require a switch that supports link aggregation.
All interfaces in a single-mode vif share a common Media Access Control (MAC) address.
The following figure is an example of a single-mode vif. In the figure, e0 and e1 are part of the SingleTrunk1 single-mode vif. If the active interface, e0, fails, the standby e1 interface takes over and maintains the connection to the switch.
