Network configuration Question

[pdrace]

We are planning a network upgrade in the near future  from 1 GB to 10 GB Ethernet.

The current configuration of our hosts uses 6 physical nic ports.

Three vswitches are configured on each host with two physical nics assigned to each switch.

One for the Service console and vmotion.

One for Virtual machine traffic.

One for the backend storage connection, we use NFS exclusively.

The expense of maintaining this configuration when we go to 10 GB would be prohibitive.

I'm trying to figure out the most efficient and secure configuration.

One scenario I am considering is one vswitch for the Service console and vm networking and one vswitch and storage and vmotion on the second vswitch.

The second switch would be on a private vlan.

The other possibility is to create a third vswitch connected to 1 GB nics for the service console.

Any suggestions and comments are welcome.

[weinstein5]

I am assuming the 10 GB upgrade is just part of a refresh program ibut if it is being done to address a perceived problem with your ESX hosts check the network utilization I am confident you will find you are not stressing the network -  If you will maintain some 1 GB connectivity that should be fine for Service Console and vmotion keeping the same configuration you currently have - redundancy is still critical so I would have a single vswitch with dual 10 GB cards and use vklans o segment vm and NAS traffic -

[pdrace]

This is a network refresh and not designed to address a problem.

I was thinking of combining the storage and vmotion traffic on one set of teamed 10 GB ports so they could both ride on the same private vlan and vmotion could take advantage of the 10 GB connection. right now vmotion is currently on a publicly routed segment and I would like to move that to a private vlan.

If we don't keep the two 1 GB connections I figured I would use the other two 10 GB ports for virtual machine traffic and the service console.

The one advantage of keeping the current SC connection is not having to reconfigure or most likely reinstall if we move it and use tagging for the SC connection.

[weinstein5]

Are the servers rack mointed or blades? it is sounds like you are using rack mounted servers.

How many 10 GB Nics will you be placing on you servers? If just two then I would say use a single virtual switch and rely upon vlan tagging to segregate the traffic - 

[pdrace]

We are using rack mounted servers. So you would add all four adapter ports into one vswitch?

[weinstein5]

So are you looking at adding 4 10 GB NICs or 2 10 GB and 2 1 GB? If you are looking at the 2+2 configuration I would have one vSwitch with the 1 GB pnics with virtual ports for vmotion and management each one use a different NIC as its primary and the other as standby and have second vSwitch used for NAS and VMs configured with the IP Hash NIC teaming -

If you are implementing 4 10 GB NICs (which in my opinion is overkill) you could do a single vSwitch with 4 NICs or do the above and create 2 vSwitches

[pdrace]

2 dual port 10 GB cards. I was talking to our network people and I beleive we will go with one vswitch and use vlans tfor the various services, storage, vmotion, management and virtual machine net