Q. How do I install the NIC teaming feature for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008?

A. NIC Teaming allows multiple separate network interfaces to be combined into one logical connection, offering increased reliability and performance by combining the bandwidth of each NIC. If I team three 1GB network adapters together, I'll get a teamed link of 3GB. If one of the NICs fails, the other NICs will continue functioning. NIC teaming is, therefore, very attractive in many server scenarios, including virtualization.

Windows doesn't actually include a feature for NIC teaming—NIC teaming isn't provided by the OS. The implementation of network teaming is delegated to the network card driver, which transparently offers a teamed logical network adapter to the OS. Major network card manufactures such as Intel and Broadcom support NIC teaming in their drivers.

You need to ensure your switch supports NIC teaming before you use it, or you may have problems with data flow.