ESXi Network Configuration

[blueprint01]

Hello,

I am currently installing three new physical ESXi 7-Hosts (no distributed switches) and I am wondering which network configration will be the bist with my hardware configuration.

Available: 2x 1 Gigabit and 2x 10 Gigabit-LAN

We need a typcial small configuration for vMotion, Management und some VLANs for VM traffic. How should I configure my network?

Should I use the 1G-Connection for Management and 10G for VM/vMotion? If so, should I use an active/active configuration for VM/vMotion or Active/Standby (and vice

versa) to avoid that vMotion puts to much load on the 10G NIC?

I'd personally prefer just to use the 10G NICs without 1G to have less cable and NICs in use.

What would you advice?

[a_p_]

If you want to use the 10 Gbit/s ports only, I'd go with a single vSwitch with an Active/Standby configuration for the port groups, i.e. vMotion vmnic1=active / vmnic0=standby, and the other way around for Management and VM traffic.

André

[blueprint01]

Hi André,

so you would also separate vMotion and VM/Management traffic on different NICs, is this for performance reason?

If we additionally use both 1G-NICs, should I configure them as active/active for management?

[a_p_]

IMO there's no need to physically separate Management traffic from VM traffic (consider to logically separate them by using VLANs). However, vMotion can saturate a physical connection, that's why I suggested the active/standby design. On the other hand, it actually depends on how often you use vMotion, and how much bandwidth your VMs need. You may even have both vmnics active for all traffic unless you have any bandwith critical VMs running on the hosts.

André