availability would be enabled by using NIC Teaming at the Hyper-V host level and
then the created team would be bonded to the virtual switch. If, for example, you were
leveraging SR-IOV, which bypasses the Hyper-V switch, you may wish to create a NIC
team within the OS between two SR-IOV network adapters or one SR-IOV and one
regular vmNIC.
The addition of NIC Teaming in Windows Server 2012 does not mean NIC Teaming
capabilities cannot be provided by vendors, however. Because the capability is
provided in the box, no network vendors have shipped their own teaming functionality
in the Windows Server 2016 time frame. Historically some vendors differentiated
their cards based on teaming capabilities, and customers had the choice to use
teaming capabilities from the network adapter driver or use the Microsoft NIC
Teaming functionality, which is fully supported by Microsoft. Nearly all customers
went the Microsoft path, which is why the vendors have pulled back from providing
their own.
No major changes to NIC Teaming have been made in Windows Server 2016, as a new
type of teaming is introduced: Switch Embedded Teaming (SET). SET, covered in the
next section, is the future direction for teaming in Windows, but this does not mean
that NIC Teaming is going away anytime soon. The only change in Windows Server
2016 LBFO teaming is the ability to change the LACP timer between a slow and fast
timer. This is important for people using Cisco switches.