About optimize esx network configuraton

[gianlucab]

Hi guys,

in esx5.1 farm i have some host with 3 nic and i need to optimize thenetwork configuration.

I to do this network configuration:

-Nic1 for ESX management

-Nic2 e Nic3 witch LCAP and using them for iscsi connection to my storage + vmotion + vm network production traffic.

The question is:

can i use Nic2 and Nic3 in the same Vswitch  for do it ?

If no  can i create 2 vswitch with the same nic (Nic1 + Nic2) ?

Thanks in advance.

[tomtom901]

You cannot create 2 vSwitches which leverage the same pNICS (physical) but you can create all these things as port groups under the same vSwitch. I would personally do it a bit different:

vmnic0 (pNIC1) used for vMotion + Management traffic

vmnic1 and 2 (pNIC2 and 3) used for storage traffic and production traffic

Don't know if there is a 4th pNIC but I would advise to get one and do it like this:

vmnic0 (pNIC1) used for vMotion + Management traffic

vmnic1 for production traffic

vmnic2 and 3 (pNIC3 and 4) used for storage traffic

If this is not an option, I would at least combine vMotion and Management to move the NIC load from a vMotion (which is basically a network copy) away from the same pNICS as the storage and production traffic.

[gianlucab]

Hi

in the first solution is LACP support on pNIC2 and pNIC 3 ?

Can i use either dvswitch or standard switch ?

Thanks in advance.

[tomtom901]

LACP is supported better since vSphere 5.5 and requires the VDS (vSphere Distributed vSwitch). A better setup for (especially) storage traffic might be MPIO (multipathing).

[BoneTrader]

yes, works like a charm if you configure for each physical NIC a seperate VMkernel Port