After adding nic to host, add to existing vSwitch or create new vSwitch?

[uyozTic]

recently i was going to swap a 2 pot nic in my ESXi 6.7 host with a 4 port card, but now decided to keep it and have 6 ports.

  8086 11bc  PRO/1000 PT Quad Port LP Server Adapter
  8086 115e  PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server Adapter

 
currently the host has these vSwitches:

vSwitch0     "VM Network"                       vlan id: 0

vSwitch0     "Management Network"        vlan id: 0
vSwitch1     "VM Network 2"                    vlan id: 0

do i add another vSwitch i.e., vSwitch2 and assign the new nic to it? or add the new nic to an existing, i.e., vSwitch1?

I'm following this thread as a howto, How to use vmnic0 and vmnic1 properly for performance?  but I don't see via web client where to add the physical nic to say, vSwitch1

[IRIX201110141 · Accepted solution]

Well, there is no wrong and there is no right.

I prefer to have different vSwitches for the different roles.

vSwitch0 (2 uplinks, vmnic0,vmnic4)

- Management

- vMotion-1

- vMotion-2

vSwitch1 (4 uplinks, vmnic1-3,vmnic5)

- LAN-1

- LAN-2

- LAN-3

- Other vSwitch for Storage(iSCSI), separate vMotion, Faulttolerance if you have enough pNICs.

- HA would like to see network redundance

- We use VLAN switchport tagging everywhere

- When havining only 2 10G cards than only one vSwitch

Regards,

Joerg

[uyozTic]

I see now, I think. cards are the same except port numbers so to add the extra nic, I would add the uplinks, say, "vmnicX, vmnicX ...".

the uplink was throwing me off a bit as I was looking for a "quad port card" to add. that would be an uplink in this case.

I don't make ues of vMotion so i'll probably just have one vmnic0 to Management and the other vmnic1-6 to vSwitch1 or create a new vSwitch2 and split up the vmnic1-6's.

>>We use VLAN switchport tagging everywhere

i'll check into this too.

thanks!

[HassanAlKak88]

Hello,

You can add new vSwitch if you need to dedicate the new uplinks for a type of workload.

And you can add the new NICs as Uplinks to the existing virtual switches to gain bandwidth and load balancing between them.

As recommendations, separate the management traffic from the VM traffic as below:

vSwitch01: (2 Uplinks)

Management

vMotion

vSwitch02: (4 Uplinks)

VM traffic

And also distribute the Uplinks between Cards to ensure availability in case a Card failure.

To add Uplink, go to Networking, select Virtual Switches, Right click you vSwitch Edit Settings, then Add Uplink and select you vmnic adapter.

Please consider marking this answer "CORRECT" or "Helpful" if you think your question have been answered correctly.

Cheers,

VCIX6-NV|VCP-NV|VCP-DC|

@KakHassan

linkedin.com/in/hassanalkak

[uyozTic]

@HassanAlKak88

by the time i saw your reply i had already awarded IRIX201110141 correct status.

you did explicity show how to add an Uplink, which i didn't see prior, but had alread figured that out by IRIX201110141 reply.

i don't know how to split "correct" awards, but IRIX201110141 had already posted and it helped me accomplish what i needed for my OP.

thank you for your reply & help.