Configuring Physical Network Adapters vSwitches

[VMthinker]

Hi there! I am currently operating 1 ESXi 4.1 Server, a Dell PowerConnect 2708 Switch (8 Port) and 2 vSwitches.

My question is as the following:

Why can't my ESXi / vCenter server detect the various physcial or ports available on the Dell Switch? I am only able to see 1 physical adapter which is my physical BroadCom Adapter which is installed on the physical ESXi Server. From what I researched, I have seen users ESXi / vCenter Server able to detect at least 1 or 2 physical adapters on their Cisco Switches.

Is the problem due to the manufacturer? Dell or Cisco? I am only able to currently see 2 Physical Network Adapters on my vCenter Server "vmnic0" which is up and running connected to my main switch which has internet access. And "vmnic32" under "Gigabit Ethernet PCIe" which is down and on standby which I am unable to configure at all.

I just need 1more physical adapter to connect to my newly created another vSwitch. Please give any useful suggestions! Thanks!!!

[weinstein5]

Remember vCenter and ESXi are two seperate entities - vCenter is used to manage your ESXi servers and can only report on what the ESXi server can see and have access to. Now on to physical network adapters and vswitches - your servers can only see what the hardware installed in your ESXi host and it can only do this if it has the necessary supported drivers installed. I am wondering if you are referring to VMware ability to support CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol) which allows the ESXi host to communicate information to and from the Cisco switches -

How many NICs do you have in your physical ESXi host - I am wondering if VMNIC32 is an iSCSI HBA rather than a regular NIC

I have also moved this to the ESXi 4 forum which is a more approriate location -

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[VMthinker]

Thanks for the quick reply.

My ESXi Host has 2 NIC ports altogether. So by judging with the CDP protocol, the ESXi Host is unable to detect the Dell switch driver and it doesn't detect the switch ports? Strange though cause I researched a bit and it seems that some users are able to detect other brand of switch ports just fine.

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

The Dell switch will need to support CDP if it does not you will not see information about the Dell switch - Are network cables pligged into both NIC ports?

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[VMthinker]

If I am not mistaken, I think the problem was due to the CDP protocol. If what you suggested was true, then the Dell switch that I am currently using right now does not support the CDP protocol thus not enabling the ESXi Server to recognize the switch ports.