nic teaming possible in esxi?

[vmos1]

Hi there, we're getting a new virtual platform, a fairly simple one duplicating one we have already. It's going to be two dell servers, linked by ethernet crossover cables, one for the esx host and one for the data store.

The servers have 4x gigabit ethernet ports each so I was thinking of using nic teaming on two of them to give greater bandwidth between the host and the store. Is it possible to configure nic teaming in esxi or do we need esx for that?

Or is nic teaming even a requirment? Can we increase the bandwidth by simply using two nics with crossovers without teaming them?

[ScottBentley]

Hi,

Yes it is possible to team nic's in ESXi you do not require ESX

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[marcelo_soares]

By datastore, you mean NFS/iSCSI?

Is possible to team on ESXi, no problem at all. I really son't think you will have enough network traffic in only one ESX to use more than 1GBit, but feel free to do the teaming - in my point of view a teaming will be useful for failover, but will not increase the speed of accessing the datastore.

Generally, nic teaming works better if your switch supports LACP or etherchannel or some link aggregation methods. Without this, hardly you will get more than 1 nic really used.

As an example, a single tcp connection between 2 computers never will use more than 1 nic, neither with etherchannel or LACP - if you need more speed a 10GBit nic would do a better job.

In your case, I would recommend doing the cross over cable - or use a switch for failover purposes.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

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[marcwolf]

Hi.

I know this thread has been quiet for a time but I am trying to do the same thing.

I am using a datastore product called Open-E which has the cabability to bond (team) NIC's together. I have 2 x 4 port cards and so I am teaming port 1 of both cards to give a 2GB link.

Likewise on the ESXi 4.1 box I have a dual port NIC which I have teamed together and have connected the two machines using crossover cables.

I have created a new virtual switch and vmkernel for the teamed NIC's but I cannot ping or connect to the datastore.

I can make a connection if I use the non-dedicated NIC's

As I am not that network savvy can you tell me what to do to get this working.

Many many thanks

Dave

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You'll want to avoid using cross over cables for the connection and you seem to have 2 vmkernel ports on the 10.10.10.0 network.  You'll want to put your storage on another subnet.

Dave
VMware Communities User Moderator

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[marcwolf]

Hi Dave.

Many thanks for replying.  Ok I have changed things so that the  bonded DSS IP address is 172.16.1.10/255.255.255.192  and the  VM Box's bonded VMKernel is 172.16.1.1/255.255.255.192 ( I only need a few IP's for this hookup and I really want to keep them isolated)

But I still cannot connect. What should be the settings for each end (I can duplicate the settings on my DSS once I know what to put in the VMKernel)

Should I have a value in the Gateway entry?.

Many thanks for your advice

Dave.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

If you access the console can you ping the DSS IP?  Don't worry about a gateway for the iSCSI vmkernel port.  It will display the gateway you originally used for the management port and that's fine (you can only have one vmkernel gateway).

If you pull one cross over cable, does it work for you?  

[marcwolf]

Hi David

Ok - I've solved it but not to my liking.

Using crossover cables I was getting nowhere - I could not ping the two interfaces.

However I put in a switch (non managed) between them with normal cables and I could ping them from either computer (DSS and ESX), although I could not use the full teaming with this.

If I have 2  switches of the same brand etc then their characteristics would be similar.. so I can put one side of the bond through one switch and the other side of the bond through the other switch This way I can have some redundancy in the switches and still have the speed I am looking for.

Many thanks

Dave

[Lunddahl]

If you are using iSCSI, NIC teaming is a big NO NO:

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/09/a-multivendor-post-on-using-iscsi-with-vmware-vsphere.html