Performance of Port Groups in the same Broadcast Domain vs Non Broadcast Domain

[nycsean79]

I currently have a Windows 2008 x64 Standard server as a File/Print./Domain Controller running inside of VMWare ESXi 4.0.1 (fully patched).

The server has a total of 8 NICs.

The VMs are using local storage.

I currently have the VMWare Service Console, and the W2K8 VM connected to the same vSwitch (vswitch0) all in the same broadcast domain.(192.168.1.0/24) using NIC's 1, & 2 (Active/Standby)

I'm wondering if I would see better performance/difference if I put the VMWare Service Console either on another broacast domain (172.16.10.0/24) through vlan trunking using the same vSwitch(vswitch0) still using NIC's 1, & 2 (Active / Standby)

or

If I put the VMWare Service Console on another vSwitch(vSwitch1) in the same Broacast domain (192.168.1.0/24) using NIC's 3, 4

or

If I put the VMWare Service Console on another vSwitch(vSwitch1) in a different Broadcast domain (172.16.10.0/24) using NIC's 3, 4

Thanks!

[a_p_]

In my opinion separating networks would not make any difference with your configuration. (Except for security)

If you run into performance issues it's more likely related to the fact that you have a file server running on a domain controller. If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft deactivates any write cache when promoting a server to a DC, to prevent possible data loss in case of power outage or other unexpected situations.

What hardware do you use? Vendor, disks, RAID,...? Performance issues are often related to the HW and BIOS configuration.

André