Intel X520-2 10G NIC Teaming

[eversys]

Dear Experts,

We are running an ESXi 5.5.0 (2068190) Host and currently have 4 x "Broadcom BCM5716C NetXtreme II GigE NICs". These have been assinged to the same vSwitch0 where all of my VMs reside.

We have purchased 2 x "Intel Ethernet Server Adapter X520-2" 10G NICs and would like to set theseup (preferrably as a team) in order that our VMs become 10G networking. How best do we do this? Is it a simple matter of assiging both NICs to my vSwitch 0 and then removing the other 4 x vmnics?

Many thanks for your feedback.

Regards, Oliver

[cjscol]

I have recently performed something similar to this and yes as simple as adding the 10GbE NICs to the vSwitch and removing the 1GbE NICs. I used this procedure

1. Configure 10GbE physical switch including VLAN trunking on ports the ESXi host will connect to, and connect to network.
2. Connect ESXi host to 10GbE physical switch
3. Add 10GbE NICs to vSwitch
4. Remove 1GbE NICs from vSwitch

You may lose a ping to the VMs as they are rerouted from the 1GbE NICs to the 10GbE NICs.

I wasn't using EtherChannel so didn't need to worry about that.

Do all your vmkernel ports and port groups use all of the 1GbE NICs or have you specified some as active and standby for certain ports, e.g. to separate Management and vMotion? Are you using Software iSCSI via this vSwitch, if so then presumably you have set the iSCSI vmkernel port(s) to only use one NIC.

[eversys]

Thanks for your feedback cjscol. Not sure about VLAN trunking - but what about setting up a trunking group (link aggregation) for the 2 ports on the switch (D-Link DGS-1510-52X) which are connected to the 2 10G-NICs? Yes, all ports vmkernel ports and port groups use the 4x1GbE NICs. I suppose I could use these (or at least one of them) as a management port. Not sure what Software iSCSI is - just using the default settings, nothing special.

[cjscol]

What Load Balancing are you using on the vSwitch, e.g. "Route based on the originating virtual port ID" or "Route based on IP hash", or one of the others?

[eversys]

At the moment load balancing for switch0 it is setup as "Route based on the originating virtual port ID".

[cjscol]

No need to set up link aggregation on the switch for the 10GbE ports then if you are using route based on port id load balancing on vSwitch

[eversys]

I just spoke to D-Link Tech Support and they mentioned that if VMware supports lacp, then it makes sense to trunk (link aggregation) the 2 ports. Any idea how we could configure the vSwitch for lacp?