Tiny 2 Host Environment - Configuration

[StixNZ]

Hi all,

I have a very small, 2 host ESXi setup (vCenter Essentials Plus 6.7) and each host as 4 x 1Gbit NIC's (HP DL380 Gen10)

My question is, is this considered typical in terms of security?:

2 x NIC teamed for production, (static channel group on switch, no LACP due to licencing)

1 x NIC for management / vmk0 (physically separate to switch) different VLAN

1 x NIC for vMotion / vmk1 *

* for vMotion I have connected the two hosts ports with a single patch cable (no switch) and I'm using link-local addresses for vMotion.

I don't intend ever to have more than 2 hosts (unless migration upgrading), is this ok do to? It works as expected.

Throughput/Performance not an issue, I don't have 10Gb switches yet.

Cheers all,

Matt

[ThompsG]

Hi StixNZ,

Looks okay however I would consider having both Management and VMotion portgroups on the same vSwitch. Then make one of the NICs active Management network with the other in Standby. Do the reverse for the VMotion portgroup.

This will give Management and VMotion networks redundancy as well.

Kind regards.

[StixNZ]

Hi ThompsG​

Yes I think I understand what you mean - same vswitch but separate VM kernels for management and vmotion with reversed active/standby.

Just in terms of network addressing/vlan would you still configure different vlan for each kernel so 'if' a link did go down thats the only time vMotion and Management use the same interface (but seperate vlan) on a correctly configured trunk port?

StixNZ

[ThompsG]

Hi StixNZ,

Yes that is exactly it.

Also yes to the seperate VLAN for Management/vMotion networks. I’d even contemplate having no gateway on the vMotion network.

Kind regards.