VMware vSphere

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  • 1.  Multiple uplink ports, single NIC per port

    Posted Dec 09, 2014 05:36 PM

    Hello,

    Please forgive my probably newbie question... I seem to be missing something obvious...

    Suppose in my vSphere 5.1 cluster I configured a distributed vswitch with 2 uplink ports and assigned a single physical NIC to each of the uplink port. Configuration of ports of a physical switch the NICs are connected to is the same.

    The question is following: do I have uplink redundancy on the dvswitch level?

    Additional question: in what way is the VM traffic handled as far as the uplinks are considered? Are all uplinks used simultaneously, one at a time with some round-robin alghorhitm, something else?

    Thanks in advance



  • 2.  RE: Multiple uplink ports, single NIC per port

    Posted Dec 09, 2014 05:43 PM

    Assuming the physical switch ports are configured the same way, and bozh uplinks are active, you do have redundancy, and the VM's will be assigned to the uplinks in a round-robin manner by default.

    André



  • 3.  RE: Multiple uplink ports, single NIC per port

    Posted Dec 09, 2014 05:52 PM

    Thanks for the quick answer. One more question, if I may...

    Would I be better off using abovemention uplink configuration (2 uplinks, 1 NIC per uplink) or rather 1 uplink with 2 NICs teamed in an active/standby configuration?

    Thanks in advance...



  • 4.  RE: Multiple uplink ports, single NIC per port

    Posted Dec 09, 2014 06:05 PM

    >>> One more question, if I may...

    That's what the forum is made for :smileywink:

    The configuration which works best depends on your specific requirements. However, I usually configure all uplinks as active without channeling, and let the ESXi hosts do their job with distributing the traffic. Anyway, with vDS you may want to take a look at the Load Based policy, which might help if the uplinks are heavily used.

    André