Please help: network failover feature of ESXi

[wongst]

Hi all,

We're going to setup a cluster using v6.7 with some ESXi server (6 NICs per server).    We hope there will be high availability in network connection.  After reading manual, seems we can do in following ways:

1. For mgmt - in "Teaming and failover" of Management Network port group, use vmnic0 as Active adapter and vmnic1 as Standby adapter.  Both vmnic0 and vmnic1 are connected to the same VLAN.

2. For vMotion+vSAN:  In Failover Order List of standard switch setting:  add vmnic2 to Active List and vmnic3 to Standby List.  Both vmnic2 and vmnic3 are connected to the same VLAN.

3. For VM Network: In Failover Order List of standard switch setting:  add vmnic4 to Active List and vmnic5 to Standby List.  Both vmnic4 and vmnic5 are connected to the same VLAN.

Would need your advice in:

- Is it good to do so?

- Since we're not using LACP,  is it correct that no special configuration at upstream network switch level is required, except tagging the VLAN ?

I'm newbie to ESXi and sorry for the naive questions.

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards

/stwong

[Scott Vessey]

Moderator: Moved to vSphere vNetwork

[NathanosBlightc]

Are all of 6 vmnic ports belong to the save vSwitch or not?! Is this the failover order for each port group on separate vSwitch or they are in the same?!

I asked you because if they are in the same vSwitch, you can set vmnic4 & vmnic5 for VM traffic transmission as Active adapter and use other ports that are assigned for management (like vmnic0 & vmnic1) as the standby adapter ... and do it vise Versa

However your configuration is a good config :smileywink: Just remember if you tag VLAN ID for your port groups, set the ports on physical switch as uplink ports (not access)

[wongst]

Hello,

Thanks for your advice.

>Are all of 6 vmnic ports belong to the save vSwitch or not?! Is this the failover order for each port group on separate vSwitch or they are in the same?!

Initially we plan to use different vSwitches for each of the 3 traffic types.  Will it be simpler to maintain and troubleshoot?

We also think about trunking all 6 NICs on single vSwitch but seems it's less straight forward ?

> Just remember if you tag VLAN ID for your port groups, set the ports on physical switch as uplink ports (not access)

This applies to the VM network that will be used for multiple VLANs as we've VMs on different VLAN.   Then we'll have something like following on physical switch setting?

1. mgmt: access port

2. vMotion+vSAN: access port

3. VM Network: uplink

>- Since we're not using LACP,  is it correct that no special configuration at upstream network switch level is required, except tagging the VLAN ?

Is this statement correct?

Thanks a lot.

Best Regards

/stwong

[NathanosBlightc]

Initially we plan to use different vSwitches for each of the 3 traffic types. Will it be simpler to maintain and troubleshoot?
We also think about trunking all 6 NICs on single vSwitch but seems it's less straight forward ?

In a concept, maybe you can say single vSwitch is simple than multiple vSwitch if you don't have many different network connectivity on the physical world (PHY-switches), but for example if you required to different trunked VLANs, yes its possible to say if you have multiple vSwitch you may provide less complex virtual networks.

>>

1. mgmt: access port

2. vMotion+vSAN: access port

3. VM Network: uplink

Why you set the mgmt, vMotion and vSAN ports as access ports? if you want to separate them and associated VMkernel ports to the different VLAN IDs (need to set different VLAN IDs on VMK port settings) you must put their physical uplinks as trunk ports for trunking their VLANs.

No need to use LACP? no need to use a feature like EtherChannel in Cisco switches.

[wongst]

>Why you set the mgmt, vMotion and vSAN ports as access ports?

I think i mixed something up.  Should use trunk port for all 3 groups of traffic, correct?

1. mgmt (2 x NIC)

2. vMotion+vSAN (2 x NIC)

3. VM Network (2 x NIC)

>No need to use LACP? no need to use a feature like EtherChannel in Cisco switches.

I just wonder if using different HA features on ESXi (see original post) for simpler configuration on both ESX and physical switch, while network throughput is not the major concern in this development platform.

Thanks a lot.

[NathanosBlightc]

Because you may need to separate traffics of MGMT, vMotion and VM networking from each other by VLAN, then you need to set the VLAN ID for each of these port groups. For trunking the VLANs between ESXi hosts via physical switch connections, you need to set the physical uplinks/ports on trunk mode. So I can say Yes! you need to set them on the trunk port

[MikeStoica]

I would have the vSAN traffic dedicated on 2 NICs and not combined with any other traffic. Also you can create a vDS for vSAN, and one for Management/VM traffic.

For Management, vmotion and vm traffic I wouldn't put a NIC as standby