ESXi vmnic teaming and multiple access switch

[dhchentw]

Hello,

We plan to connect our ESXi to 2 different access switch to increase redundancy. Both switch connect to core via etherchannel. Currently we connect 2 vmnics to 2 switches(one to one), assign 2 vmnics to vswitch as uplink adapter, set those 2 uplinks as active adapters, and load balancing set as based on virtual port id.

Everything seems to be fine until I found KB 1001938 says "ESX/ESXi host only supports NIC teaming on a single physical switch or stacked switches." Is there any problem with our setup? If so, how should we set up network redundancy (different access switch?) ?

[chriswahl]

Discussion moved from VMware ESXi 5 to VMware vSphere™ vNetwork

It sounds like you're on the right track. In the case where an ESXi host has 2 physical uplinks (vmnics), each vmnic should be connected to a different physical switch for redundancy. You can then create a vSwitch that contains both of these vmnics, mark them both active, and use them for traffic. You would then repeat this process for any other hosts.

Here's an example from my lab.

[rickardnobel · Accepted solution]

dhchentw wrote:

Everything seems to be fine until I found KB 1001938 says "ESX/ESXi host only supports NIC teaming on a single physical switch or stacked switches." Is there any problem with our setup?

There is no problem and your solution is fully supported. The KB article describes the link aggregation standard 803.2ad (called "IP Hash" on ESXi) which has the requirements above with a single or stacked physical switches.

When you are using the Port ID method you could without problems connect the host to several physical switches, just make sure all VLANs are available on all switch links.

[Gkeerthy]

hi

As mentioned by the rickardnobel and chriswahl there is no issue, important things are

1 - All the vlans needs to be there in the both Pswitches

2- connect pnics to pswitch that is from Vswitch once pnic will be connected to the each pswitch

3- use route based on originating virtual port id team policy

4- If you have only one switch, and you need aggregation for both incomming and out going traffic you need to connect the 2 nics from the vvswitch to the pswitch and create an etherchannel, then use the IP hash team pollicy

5- If you have a stackable switch, ciso solution like stackwise, or multichassis etherchannel or multi switch link aggregation, there you can span the etherchannel between 2 switches. Other wise for etherchannel you need to connect all the pnics to one pswitch.