Network best practices with only 4 nics

[tom11011]

I am accustomed to configuring esx with fiber channel sans. This will be my first experience connecting esx to an iscsi san.

I only have 4 nics on the server and am wondering what is best practice.

I'm thinking 2 of the 4 nics are going to be dedicated to the san for HA.

But the other 2 kind of throw me for a loop.

I know I want console, vmotion, and trunk for vlans, but I don't think I can have all 3 on the same vswitch?

Am I stuck with having console and vmotion on one nic and trunk on the other? IE- no failover?

Is there anyway to get console, vmotion, and trunk to all exist together?

Thank you in advance.

[malaysiavm]

you can consider to deploy dvswitch and publish all your port group, SC, and vmkernel into the DVswitch.

Craig

vExpert 2009

Malaysia VMware Communities -

[tom11011]

We are running advanced license. I think you need enterprise plus for distributed vswitch.

[Josh26]

I know I want console, vmotion, and trunk for vlans, but I don't think I can have all 3 on the same vswitch?

Is there anyway to get console, vmotion, and trunk to all exist together?

Thank you in advance.

Although people will tell you this is not best practice, there is no reason you cannot place all three items on one vswitch. Just create one new vSwitch for your iSCSI - it's the most important thing to isolate - and enable vmotion and your VM VLANs on your default vswitch.

[tom11011]

I know I want console, vmotion, and trunk for vlans, but I don't think I can have all 3 on the same vswitch?

Is there anyway to get console, vmotion, and trunk to all exist together?

Thank you in advance.

Although people will tell you this is not best practice, there is no reason you cannot place all three items on one vswitch. Just create one new vSwitch for your iSCSI - it's the most important thing to isolate - and enable vmotion and your VM VLANs on your default vswitch.

Ok, I think if I understand what you are saying, in order to have all 3 on the same vswitch, I will have to change my pswitch port to trunk and than assign the console a vlan for my lan? Does that sound right?

[Stu_McHugh]

Perhaps something like this?

Notice my vswitch0 is on the 10.10... network and the iSCSI traffic is on 10.8.. network.

Hope that helps.

Stuart

Please award points to any useful answer.

[tom11011]

I only have 4 physical interfaces, you are showing 6.

[a_p_]

If this was an election, I'd vote for Josh26 :smileywink:

Just some additions to his recomendation:

vSwitch0:

2 pNICs connected to trunk ports on the pSwitch (vmnic0, vmnic1)

Service Console Portgroup - VLANxxx - (vmnic0 active, vmnic1 standby)

VMkernel Portgroup for vMotion - VLANyyy - (vmnic0 standby, vmnic1 active)

Virtual Machine Network - VLANzzz - (vmnic0 active, vmnic1 standby)

vSwitch1:

2 pNICs (vmnic2, vmnic3)

VMkKernel Portgroup for iSCSI

With the above configuration you separated iSCSI traffic, which is most important.

SC and VM network share one pNIC and vMotion has it's dedicated pNIC.

Everything is redundant.

André

[Stu_McHugh]

Andre suggetions looks good too! :smileycool:

With my example with 6 nic's just, ingore one of nic from each vSwitch but add your 4th to what ever you see fit!

2 Choices to choose from! :smileygrin:

Hope you get this all sorted!

Stuart

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Please award points to any useful answer.

[tom11011]

If this was an election, I'd vote for Josh26 :smileywink:

Just some additions to his recomendation:

vSwitch0:

2 pNICs connected to trunk ports on the pSwitch (vmnic0, vmnic1)

Service Console Portgroup - VLANxxx - (vmnic0 active, vmnic1 standby)

VMkernel Portgroup for vMotion - VLANyyy - (vmnic0 standby, vmnic1 active)

Virtual Machine Network - VLANzzz - (vmnic0 active, vmnic1 standby)

vSwitch1:

2 pNICs (vmnic2, vmnic3)

VMkKernel Portgroup for iSCSI

With the above configuration you separated iSCSI traffic, which is most important.

SC and VM network share one pNIC and vMotion has it's dedicated pNIC.

Everything is redundant.

André

Thanks, that was what I was looking for. I just wasn't sure if the ports could be trunked.

[malaysiavm]

in that case, reserve 2 NICs for the VMkernel. in the vswitch create 2 different port group to isolate vmotion and ISCSI traffic.

the others 2 NICs you can configure Service console and port group for VMnetwork.

Craig

vExpert 2009

Malaysia VMware Communities -

[Stu_McHugh]

My advise would be at the very least seperate the iSCSI traffic on to another vLAN and NIC. I guess you could have a config as follows

NIC 1 - iSCSI - (VLAN'd,)

NIC 2 - Virtual Machines

NIC 3 - Service console

NIC 4 - (redundacy for where ever you see the most need)

Hope that help but just my opinion.