Mixing 1gb and 10gb NIC in same vSwitch

[WeezD]

Is it possible, or advisable, to mix 1gb and 10gb NICs (both active) in a vSwitch for LAN connectivity?  We only have one 10gb switch but want some resilience if the switch fails.

Thanks in advance.

[unsichtbare]

Should be possible if:

• Both the 10Gb and 1Gb ports on the physical switches are identically configured and have access to all of the same network(s) and VLAN(s)

I would think the "correct" way of doing this would be placing the 1Gb NIC in "standby" mode so all traffic was forced over the 10Gb link unless it failed.

If you tried both active, using the default load balancing policy "route based on source port ID," some VMs would have the 10Gb NIC and some would have the 1Gb NIC. I am honestly not sure what would happen if you tried using both active and "route based on IP hash" as a load balancing policy, but I don't think it sounds like a good idea.

[SavkoorSuhas]

Hello,

Yes you can mix 1GIG and 10GIG NIC on the same vSwitch.

There are a couple of considerations:

1. Make sure that the physical switch can handle 10 GIG traffic.

2. If in case you move to a DVSwitch and do the mixing of NICs of different bandwidth, then make sure these NICs are not part of LAG.

Only in DVSwitch if this NIC is part of a LAG, then the bandwidth of 10 GIG NIC would be impacted.

All in all, if your physical switch can handle 10 GIG Traffic, then go ahead and do the mixed NIC Configuration.

Suhas

[WeezD]

Thank you both for your helpful replies.