pNIC vSwitch Port Drop Rate

[Aaron Artea]

Hello All, 

Perhaps someone can direct me to an answer already provided through these forums, but I've yet to stumble across (via different web engines, browsing Broadcom forums, etc.) an answer related to the relevance of this metric: "pNIC vSwitch Port Drop Rate". 

I'm using vSAN 8.0.3 (build 24322831). 

What is its significance? And its impact to my systems? And is there a threshold that shouldn't be crossed? Any links to official Broadcom documentation is appreciated. 

I'll attach a relevant screencap.: 

Thank you for your time. 

[aurora-chase]

Hi. Here I found some references:

1. https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/376945/high-pnic-error-rate-which-is-exceeding.html
2. https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/312096/alarm-about-high-pnic-error-rate-being-d.html?

[Aaron Artea]

Thank you kindly for your notes. I'll review these hyperlinks. 

[Alexandru Capras]

Hi Aaron,

This one's a bit tricky.

The only official documentation I found with a quick search that refers to packet loss and drop rates is this:
https://www.vmware.com/docs/vmw-troubleshooting-vsan-performance

Since vSAN is highly dependent on the network, any improper firmware or driver for the network cards used in the hosts can have a significant impact - this is also mentioned in the documentation.

In this older discussion about a similar issue, @Dave Morera from Broadcom mentioned that the first thing he would check is the firmware and drivers of the NICs:
https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/very-high-pnic-inbound-packet-loss-rate-counters-host-issue-or-switch-issue

...I'd start the troubleshooting with that too.

[Aaron Artea]

Hello Alexandru, 

I appreciate your response. Our team is also reviewing the physical hardware components, so their cause to this issue may be likely. But I'll be sure to review these hyperlinks you've sent. Thanks again.