Second Service Console?

[hutchingsp]

I'm looking at a basic 2 host "stretch cluster" with a basic layout as follows:

The cloud is our existing flat LAN, everything above is vSphere with dedicated switches to deal with iSCSI and vMotion.

I was reading http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100264...

If I wanted additional service console redundancy, as I understand it, I could add a port group to one of the vSwitch's (or a dedicated vSwitch) and configure a second service console on a dedicated VLAN (let's use VLAN300) which would be tagged across the inter-switch link along with VLAN's 100 & 200.

What I'm a little unsure of is what else I would need to configure?

Would the second service console need a default gateway if it's only going to communicate between the two hosts within VLAN300?

Thanks.

[a_p_]

Would the second service console need a default gateway if it's only going to communicate between the two hosts within VLAN300?

As long as the second SC only communicates with the SC on the other host which is in the same subnet, there's no need for a gateway. If you follow the VMware High Availability: Concepts, Implementation, and Best Practices link in the KB you mentioned you will find all the settings neccessary for this configuration.

However, I usually use the "NIC Teaming" approach for SC redundancy. It's way easier to configure, if there's no need for an SC on another subnet.

About your setup:

- Be careful with using "VLAN 1". By default VLAN 1 is the native VLAN for switches. If you use this, don't configure this VLAN on the port group, otherwise it won't work. I'd recommend you use another VLAN for the SC.

- Talking about the SC. I assume you are aware of the fact, that ESX will not be available anymore in the future. Therefore I'd recommend you start with ESXi.

André

[hutchingsp]

Thanks Andre, there is no "need" for a second SC, I'm just looking at what's possible and practical and sensible I guess.

Regards VLAN1, thank you for the heads-up. I assumed I wouldn't have to be tagging the traffic that's for our main LAN as untagged traffic (our existing LAN is simply a flat LAN with no VLANs in use) would default to VLAN1 on the physical switch unless I configured it otherwise.

Regards SC, I'm still debating ESX vs. ESXi and ESXi makes more sense, I guess I'm using the word SC when I mean "Management network"?

[logiboy123]

For a highly available and redundant configuration you would want at least two pNic's per vSwitch. I wouldn't bother making redudant service consoles. Just build redundancy into your physical setup.

With your requirements my setup would be something like the following:

vSwitch0 - Management (SC) and VMotion with each VMKernel assigned an active/standby cofiguration. Further each VMKernel is assign the relevent VLAN.

Management - vmnic0 active / vmnic3 standby

VMotion - vmnic3 active / vmnic0 standby

The above configuration will do several things. It will sperate your VMotion and Management layers using VLAN zones, further it will seperate them out to use different physical NIC's but will also allow for redundancy.

vSwitch1 - iSCSI - vmnic1 & vmnic4

Typically my clients use systems like the P4000 HP LeftHand SAN. I set this up in a software iSCSI configuration that uses round robin for load balancing which gives maximum throughput and redundancy. I like to have a seperate vSwitch for iSCSI because I like to set jumbo frames at the switch. See the following document for a walkthrough.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/24586958/Configuring-Left-Hand-ISCSI-and-VSPHERE-MPIO

vSwitch2 - VM Network - vmnic2 & vmnic6

Both NIC's configured in an active/active setup. Just assign as many port groups as you require.