Link based IPMP vs probe based IPMP in solaris 10

From the sunsolve doc http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-86869-1 , there are 3 modes of IPMP that we can configure,

Probe based IPMP - active standby setup
Probe based IPMP - active active setup
Linke based IPMP - active standby setup

The only difference on Probe based IPMP active-active' setup versus active-standby's setup is the word "deprecated" in the second configuration file. When you add in the "deprecated" tag, the network traffic would actually NOT go through the physical IP. When you snoop on the interface the traffic will go out on your virtual IPs.

Link-based IPMP

For link-based failure detection, only the link between local interface and the link partner is checked on hardware layer. Neither IP layer nor any further network path will be monitored.

No test addresses are required for link-based failure detection. So the pro here is that you save on the number of IP. But then if you are on your own private network, are you sure you have some many IPs that you would ran out of it? Most likely the reason is the ease of IP management.

Probe-based IPMP

Probe-based failure detection is performed on each interface in the IPMP group that has a test address. Using this test address, ICMP probe messages go out over this interface to one or more target systems on the same IP link.

The in.mpathd daemon determines which target systems to probe dynamically. The whole network path up to the gateway (router) is monitored on IP layer. With all interfaces in the IPMP group connected via redundant network paths (switches etc.), you get full redundancy.

On the other hand the default router can be a single point of failure, resulting in 'All Interfaces in group have failed'.

Conclusion

Meaning that probe based IPMP monitors the path up to the gateway while link based IPMP monitors only up to the next physical link. Nothing more nothing less.

Link based IPMP cant 'see' what's after this physical link.

I still prefer probe based IPMP as i have more ease when troubleshooting to determine whether i have connection all the way to the destination. Using link based IPMP means that i would have to get the network guys to check for me if the connection is down.

Note: netstat -k seem to be dropped in solaris 10.