proper ESXi networking with 6 NIC ports??

[tlyczko]

Each ESX host server has 6 NIC ports, configured as:

pNIC1 and pNIC2: vSwitch 1: Service Console and vmKernel, each with its own IP address

pNIC2 and pNIC3: vSwitch 2: backend vmKernel connections and IP relative to our MSA 2012i SAN

pNIC4 and pNIC5: vSwitch 3: production network for all VMs on the host

How should I do things differently for ESXi?? -- particularly for vSwitch 1?? -- since the "Service Console" in ESXi is now its own VM?? -- does vmKernel even still exist??

Should vSwitch 1 get the vmKernel and the Service Console VM, what???

I'll ask first about configuring vSwitch 1 -- what do I do with these items??

Later I'll ask about vSwitch 2 but if anyone can comment that would help a lot...

Thank you, Tom

[idle-jam]

it's still the same for ESXi. i would separate the vmkernel and do it purely for iSCSI traffic only as the traffic could be very large. You can enable jumbo frames to make ur iscsi better. also look into iscsi load balancing.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2009/03/18/iscsi-multipathing-with-esxcliexploring-the-next-version-of-...

[samansalehi]

Dear Friend, I configure my NICs like this, I hope this is helpful:

I set my VM that use network up to 80 percent in a vswitch that console and vmkernel not connected to this switch and use a seperate NIC.

It works for all solution for me.

And when i said up to 80 percent it includes iSCSI SAN.

Saman

[AndreTheGiant]

See also: http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10985

[tlyczko]

I will set it up as depicted with just vmKernel on its vSwitch.

Our SAN doesn't have load balancing etc.

Jumbo frames I am investigating...

Thank you...