vmware network

[usr345]

Hello,

What are the requirements for vmotion network

What are the requirements for having multiple vlans in a cluster

Our environment is:

ESXi 4.1 managed by vcenter 4.1

Thanks

[Walfordr]

Hello,

What are the requirements for vmotion network

vmkernel portgroup on each host with matching name, 1Gbps network and seperate vlan (network) are the recommended requirements.  You'll find many people that share this over the management uplinks but recommended practice is use separate uplinks and even separate vSwitch.

What are the requirements for having multiple vlans in a cluster

Purely from a VMware perspective (not including your pSwitch config): For each vLAN you will need a seperate portgroup so that you can assign your vLAN and VMs to that portgroup.  You can only have 1 vLAN per portgroup and multiple portgroups per vSwitch.

There are several KBs/Documents that you can find most of these information in:

VLAN Configuration on Virtual Switch, Physical Switch, and Virtual Machines

Sample configuration of virtual switch VLAN tagging (VST Mode)

Hope that helps some.

[usr345]

Thank you for the information. How about it from physical network prospective:

Should vmotion network be seperate physical network from the management and virtual machine network

for multiple vlans as I understand your management and vmotion n/w need not be configured for multiple vlans its just the virtual machine network that needs to be physicaaly connected to multiple vlans and configured at virtual machine swtich for multiple vlans

Does that sound about right?

Thanks

[Walfordr · Accepted solution]

user345,

I had compiled a very lengthly reply but received an error from the forum when hit the post button.  I'll have to keep this one short.

Should vmotion network be seperate physical network from the management and virtual machine network

Yes, If you are tightly following VMware's best practices, you would separate each different type of network traffic - vmotion, mgmt, iscsi, vmnetwork.

for multiple vlans as I understand your management and vmotion n/w  need not be configured for multiple vlans its just the virtual machine  network that needs to be physicaaly connected to multiple vlans and  configured at virtual machine swtich for multiple vlans

Does that sound about right?

Again, if tightly following best practices you seperate everything with differnt uplink(s).  In the real world you have to balance budget against best practices.  Some times budget dictates how closely you follow best practice.

You'll find that probably majority of VMware Admins keep the SC/mgmt network and vmotion on the same vSwitch/Uplinks.  If you should go this route I would suggest that you use separate IP networks for mgmt and vmotion.  Especially in ESXi.  So port group for mgmt would be 192.168.1.5/24 and port group for vmotion would be 192.168.252.5/24.  You should not need to make any changes on the pSwitch as long as all your host have vMotion on the 192.168.252.x/24 network.

I suggest that you read the networking section of these two best practices guide.

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere4.1.pdf  <<Performance based but has a networking section

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esxi_server_config.pdf <<Check out the networking section

Hope that helps.