VMware Cloud Community
dauphin77
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

vDS and network redundancy

Hello all,

I have been tasked to have full network redundancy in our vDS setup (ESXi 5.5/vCenter 5.5) for my management network. Will I need to have 2 separate NIC's to do so?

Is it really necessary to have full redundancy for a management network? Would it be easier to do this in vSS setup?

Any insight would be appreciated.

Tags (3)
Reply
0 Kudos
2 Replies
Sharath_BN
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

The answer to you question might be a little situation dependent.

The host management network is the only medium you can connect to host and manage it. Be it vCenter, vSphere client or SSH.

If the VM and management network are using different uplinks and you can afford not to manage host unless VM are running and we fix the network issues on management connectivity then you can choose not to have redundancy( Own risk and should only be done in lab setup and not in production).

Any good infrastructure design should always have redundancy for management. You can configure multiple uplinks to management network on vDS and vSS both.

Advantages of doing it on vDS is a command template applied all host connected to that vDS compared to individually doing it on host on vSS.

Regards

Sharath BN

NuggetGTR
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

using vDS or vSS would be the same when it comes to redundancy, it all depends on how many NICs you have to play with to how you would configure it, like having a single vDS with all NICs assigned and then manage the port groups. Or have 2 vDS one for management one for VM with the NICs split between them. But for proper redundancy you will also require not only additional NICs but make sure that the NICs go off to different switches. if both NICs go into the same switch then the network isn't redundant while it protects against physical NIC failure if the switch goes down then its all lost.

Its all relative to what you want to protect against and the budget you have.

Cheers

________________________________________ Blog: http://virtualiseme.net.au VCDX #201 Author of Mastering vRealize Operations Manager