Active/Active to two different Physical switches

[Sparrohawk]

I am considering this type of configuration for my main vSwitch.

Two physical Adapters in an active/active, but having the physcial Adapters on different physical switches? Will this work? What are the limitations? Is esx smart enough to know if one switch goes down to route out the other switch? Will it load balance?

Or would this be better suited for Active/Standby. But then we lose the nic teaming.

We will be using Vlan Tagging and 802.1q as well on this vSwitch.

GOAL: To allow the for physical switch redundancy while bonding the two Vmnics

[mcowger]

This works fine, and we do this on our cluster for the VM vSwitch. Just make sure your ISL is setup correctly, and active/active over 2 switches works fine. yes, if you choose the right load balancing option (ip hash is my prefernce) it wil load balance as well (make sure your switch is set to the same option).

ESX determines the switch to use by making sure it has link. Any switch with no link doesn't get used. it can get a little more fancy by using beacon probes if you want, which will detect a bad port that doesn't lose link.

--Matt

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

This configuration is actually a best practice from a security system availability perspective. It is however more complex so there could be some issues on the network backplane. I personally have had issues using route based on iphash going across multiple switches. I currently use route base on port ID which is more stable during failed or problem event senarios.

[polysulfide]

Can you have a 4 NIC Team where 2 NICs go to an etherchannel group on one switch and the other 2 go to an etherchannel group on another switch?

If it was useful, give me credit

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/polysulfide

VI From Concept to Implementation

[RenaudL]

Can you have a 4 NIC Team where 2 NICs go to an etherchannel group on one switch and the other 2 go to an etherchannel group on another switch?

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMLT

[depping]

I would not create 2 etherchannels in 1 vswitch, you will get weird mac table updating issues for sure. and also a active/standby isn't an option, because when a nic dies in the active etherchannel a nic of the standby etherchannel will become active and this wil also create all sort of weird problems.

Duncan

My virtualisation blog:

[polysulfide]

The etherchannel ports would be on two different switches. I'm going to do this anyway. I'm just curious if two trunks could then be teamed with ESX.

RenaudL, you got me all excited there for a second but I'm using Cisco equippment.

If it was useful, give me credit

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/polysulfide

VI From Concept to Implementation

[Sparrohawk]

Matt,

I like your thoughts. Do you have any further informaiton on the actual configuration you recommend. We are not using cisco and ISL is cisco propriatery.

Does Vmware have any documentation on this type of configuration? I heard they don't get to involved with the networking side.

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

You do not need a Cisco ISL trunk. You can use 802.3ad link aggregation and 802.1q vlan trunking which are widely adoped standards.

I am using it on HP switches without any issues.

[jhanekom]

Renaud, do you know if ESX will support the use of SMLT at some point in future? From what I've read and been taught, this is definitely a big no-no in the current release, correct?

I've had many people get excited about trunking/channeling together massive numbers of Ethernet connections to improve performance, but once they realise a single IP stream cannot exceed the speed of any of the individual adapters anyway, the bubble bursts quite quickly. After some to and fro, they're usually quite happy to go with the default Virtual Port ID load balancing.

[depping]

If your cisco switch supports cross stack etherchannels than it's no problem at all, like the cisco 3750 for instance. But if it doesn't you will definitely run into al sorts of problems.

Duncan

My virtualisation blog: