Hi All,
Firstly, I’m still learning about vSphere etc. so please be gently
Our company is looking at implementing vSphere 5, we have an existing virtual environment however, we will be building a new one from the grounds up which is great as it is a perfect opportunity for me to learn and progress.
I guess, with any implementation you need a design, in my case i need a little help from you all with the network design. Below is the specification of the equipment: We will be purchasing 3 DL360G7x5650 with the following spec:
Quantity Per Host:
Server: DL360G7x5650
Ram: 48 GB
NIC Ports: 12 Total - (2x4port PCI and 2xDuel ports Onboard)
HDD: 2x72GB 6G SAS 15K
We will also be looking to purchase 2x 24 (maybe 48) port Cisco gigabyte switches.
The idea I was thinking for the network side would be:
Create 4 new VLAN's as follows:
Name | Subnet |
---|---|
vMGMT_60 | 192.168.60.* |
viSCSI_61 | 192.168.61.* |
vProduction_62 | 192.168.62.* |
vMotion_63 | 192.168.63.* |
Host Configuration:
vLAN | HOST 1 | HOST 2 | HOST 3 |
---|---|---|---|
vMGMT_60 | 192.168.60.1 | 192.168.60.2 | 192.168.60.3 |
viSCSI_61 | 192.168.61.1 | 192.168.61.2 | 192.168.61.3 |
vProduction_62 | 192.168.62.1 | 192.168.62.2 | 192.168.62.3 |
vMotion_63 | 192.168.63.1 | 192.168.63.2 | 192.168.63.3 |
Each host will be given 2 NIC's per functionality such as below:
vLAN | NIC 1 | NIC 2 |
---|---|---|
vMGMT_60 | ACTIVE | PASSIVE |
viSCSI_61 | ACTIVE | ACTIVE |
vProduction_62 | ACTIVE | ACTIVE |
vMotion_63 | ACTIVE | ACTIVE |
Which gives me a pretty picture like this:
Please let me know your thoughts and if I have completely missed the mark, as I said in the very beginning, I am verynew to this and welcome your contributions
Thank you
Welcome to the Community - Your design looks good - and whats nice is you stil have 4 avalble NIC ports that can be used later if the need for bandwidth is needed -
Thank you
I wanted to spread each connection over the NIC’s so that there was no single point of failure however, as you said, I have 4 ports available to add additional should I require the bandwidth, though, if I were to add FT with a failover, these would be on the same NIC so maybe I should change it so I have at least 1 free port on each NIC? or, would you just add it to the same Vlan as vMotion and add an additional NIC + vNIC to provide additional band width?
Thank you again for taking the time to provide feedback, always great to know that there are people that will offer assistance when need
Following on from my original post, I have now been looking at the vSwitch configuration, below is what I have in mind:
I do have a query about vSwitch 1 (ISCSI), from what I understand from Dells Best Practices, for every physical NIC an additional VMkernel port should be created so you have a 1:1 session ratio .
With that in mind, if my 3 hosts are each configured with sequential IP's as below
vLAN | HOST 1 | HOST 2 | HOST 3 |
---|---|---|---|
viSCSI_61 | 192.168.61.1 | 192.168.61.2 | 192.168.61.3 |
Would that mean, on each host (since there are 2 NIC's each for iSCSI) that I would then need to create an additional VMkernel port such as below:
vLAN | HOST 1 | HOST 2 | HOST 3 |
---|---|---|---|
viSCSI_61 | 192.168.61.1 | 192.168.61.2 | 192.168.61.3 |
viSCSI_2_61 | 192.168.61.4 | 192.168.61.5 | 192.168.61.6 |
Thank you.
I'm not familiar with DELL's best practice, so I cannot answer this question right now.
Regarding Management and vMotion, I usually place these two port groups on one vSwitch and configure the vmnics on the port groups for active/standby to make sure each port group uses its dedicated NIC and only fails over to the other one in case of a link loss. Even though you have enough NICs in the host, IMO there's no need to "waste" NICs. I would rather attach the NICs to the Virtual Machine port group.
André
Hi André
I do see what you are saying, though, if you were doing a lot of P2V or now that vSphere 5 allows you to vmotion more VMs in one go, would it now be better to allocate the service console and vmotion ports their own NIC?
Given what you mentioned above, is this how you would do it?
syn3rgy
you're right, that configuration is correct, I sent a reference document for dell MD3000 iSCSI storage that can serve to check the settings
regards
Rolando Mariano Kohl
Enviado el: Thursday, July 21, 2011 7:58 AM
Para: KOHL ROLANDO MARIANO
Asunto: New message: "Networking Configuration\Design"
VMware Communities<http://communities.vmware.com/index.jspa>
Networking Configuration\Design
reply from syn3rgy<http://communities.vmware.com/people/syn3rgy> in ESXi - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1796175#1796175
Hi Rolando,
Sorry, Which one is correct? the very first diagrams i posted or the last one?
also, where could I find the document you mentioned? I have had a quick look through
Configuring VMware vSphere Software iSCSI with Dell EqualLogic PS Series Storage
Thank you
Rob
Given what you mentioned above, is this how you would do it?
Not exactly. What I meant was:
Management - vmnic2 active, vmnic6 standby
vMotion - vmnic6 active - vmnic2 standby
This way each of the two port groups has its own dedicated NIC and you would also have redundancy in case one of the links doesn't work.
André
Rob, sorry the correct diagram is the last,
Here post the configuration of Storage MD3000i and vSphere
http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/VMwareESX4.0andPowerVault+MD3000i
If you have any questions contact me
Rolando Mariano Kohl
Plataformas WinIntel
Gcia. de Infraestructura Tecnológica
Banco Hipotecario S.A.
Tel: (54 11) 4346-2659
Enviado el: Thursday, July 21, 2011 12:36 PM
Para: KOHL ROLANDO MARIANO
Asunto: New message: "Networking Configuration\Design"
VMware Communities<http://communities.vmware.com/index.jspa>
Networking Configuration\Design
reply from syn3rgy<http://communities.vmware.com/people/syn3rgy> in ESXi - View the full discussion<http://communities.vmware.com/message/1796489#1796489
You need change in vMotion_63 port group the NIC 1 to PASSIVE
vLAN | NIC 1 | NIC 2 |
---|---|---|
vMGMT_60 | ACTIVE | PASSIVE |
viSCSI_61 | ACTIVE | ACTIVE |
vProduction_62 | ACTIVE | ACTIVE |
vMotion_63 | PASSIVE | ACTIVE |