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pantos21
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network load balancing ibm hs22 esxi 5

Dear all, I have a Blade HS22 connected to a bladecenter H with 2 ethernet switch io modules. So my HS22 blade has 2 nic's and each is connected to diferent switch on the blade center. I want to configure nic teaming on me HS22 server that has ESXi 5.The load balancing mode i will configure the default option on the ESXi. I want to ask if i need to connect both ethernet switch io modules to a single external switch, or is better to connect them to 2 diferent switches and may be configure the same vlans on the ports of all swithces?

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marcelo_soares
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It depends on the redundancy level you want for your network. There should be no problem having 2 switches if they are correctly configured.

Marcelo Soares

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marcelo_soares
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It depends on the redundancy level you want for your network. There should be no problem having 2 switches if they are correctly configured.

Marcelo Soares
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pantos21
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hi marcelo,  i would like redudancy and load balancing if possible. first option i suppose that if i connect to the same switch i will have load balancing but not redudancy, second option if i connect to 2 diferent switches and add these ports to vlan id 10 that is my servers vlan for both switches i will achive both redudancy and some kind of load balancing. On the esxi side now the default options for load balancing should be ok for both configurations that i mentioned? for both options i suppose i will not have any looping correct? thanks in advanced

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abirhasan
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For redandency you have to configure STP/RSTP . Load balancing and with redancy is nice.

abirhasan 
a_p_
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Some thoughts on this:

For redundancy you either need to connect two uplinks from each of the interconnect switches to two different (core) switches or at least configure "Link State Tracking" (afaik only available for Cisco Switches) on the interconnect switches. This will ensure network connectivity/failover in case of a connection issue (e.g. broken network cable).

Regarding load balancing, ESXi - with the default policy - does a load distribution rather than load balancing by assigning one of the vSwitch's uplinks (round-robin) to a VM at the time the VM is powered on.

André

marcelo_soares
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No looping at all. The load balancing only you will need to perform it manually, like creating 2 portgroups on different VLANs (or the same) and on each portgroup specifying a vmnic as active and the other as standby, reverting this order on the other portgroup. It will be the easier way to have fault tollerance and load balancing without the need to enable advanced features on your core switches.

Marcelo Soares
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pantos21
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thank you all for your answers, it is more clear now. i think i will discouse it further with our network support company.

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