vSphere vNetwork

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  • 1.  Enabling Jumbo Frames

    Posted Mar 30, 2010 07:26 PM

    We are currently at VMware ESX 4.0.0 build-208167 on Dell m1000 blade chasis. we are getting ready to enable jumbo frames on our ESX 4 blade servers. I have existing vswitches already in place. Here is the setup:

    Switch Name Num Ports Used Ports Configured Ports MTU Uplinks

    vSwitch0 32 11 32 1500 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    PortGroup Name VLAN ID Used Ports Uplinks

    vm_network 128 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    Service Console 171 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    VMkernel_NFS 175 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    VMkernel_iSCSI 174 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    VMkernel_FT 173 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    VMkernel_VMotion 172 1 vmnic0,vmnic1,vmnic2,vmnic3

    We have 4 pnic Etherchannel with 6 vlans configured. To use jumbo frames, I will need to create a new vSwitch and issue the command 'esxcfg-vswitch -m 9000 vSwitch1' then recreate each one of the vmkernel ports, then add the two pnics to this vswitch that will run iscsi/nfs via etherchanneled together.

    Our DataCom staff and our Storage Are Network staff will enable jumbo frames on our Cisco switches and our Network Appliance SAN end to end.

    Would the iscsi vmkernel port and the nfs vmkernel port be the only two that would take advantage of the jumbo frames? Can I include the sc port, vmotion port, and the fault tolerant potrt as well for jumbo frames?



  • 2.  RE: Enabling Jumbo Frames

    Posted Mar 30, 2010 09:19 PM

    You can use Jumbo Frames for this also. I can tell that you don't need to re-create everything, just simple enable the 9000 MTU when the physical switches are already configured. Just be sure about it :smileyhappy:

    Marcelo Soares

    VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

    Virtualization Tech Master

    Globant Argentina

    Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.



  • 3.  RE: Enabling Jumbo Frames

    Posted Mar 31, 2010 01:51 AM

    IMO, i would only enable jumbo frames on your NICs that are going to be utilized for iSCSI/NFS because that's where you are going to see the greatest benefit. Jumbo frames must be configured from end to end. On the vSwitch or vDS, on the physical ESX(i) NIC, on every switch between the ESX host and the SAN, and on the SAN itself. There is careful planning involved in implementing, Read this post on correctly configuring jumbo frames for vsphere http://blog.scottlowe.org/2009/05/21/vmware-vsphere-vds-vmkernel-ports-and-jumbo-frames/