Advice on setup with 2 Sun Blades and San

[Wouter1]

Hi all,

Can you give me some advice with a new setup: we're running a POC of VMware view and we have 2 Sun Blades X6250. Both are running ESX 3.5U3, but only one is connected to a SAN.

The first blade is running vCenter and VMware View as virtual machines. The second one (connected to the SAN) is running the virtual workstations (XP's)

This setup is chosen only for budget reasons. We plan to connect to second blade to the SAN, but it required a fiber switch and a HBA. But there is no budget for the moment ;-(

Each blade has 2 NIC's and both are connected. We have created one vSwitch; service console, VM's network and vmkernel. Both NIC's are added to this vSwitch as active-active to divide the load.

Is it still a requirement for VMotion to have a private NIC or can it be shared?

I thought it was possible to do a VMotion while a VM is running without shared storage? Is it also possible with the vCenter running as VM? It would be nice for the patching.

Any other tips or advice?

Thanks in advance. We really appreciate it.

Wouter

[rpartmann · Accepted solution]

Hi,

But there is no budget for the moment ;-(

we all know this situation 😄

Each blade has 2 NIC's and both are connected. We have created one vSwitch; service console, VM's network and vmkernel. > Is it still a requirement for VMotion to have a private NIC or can it be shared?

it can be shared but speed should be 1Gb

I thought it was possible to do a VMotion while a VM is running without shared storage?

vMotion needs a shared storage

Is it also possible with the vCenter running as VM? It would be nice for the patching.

yes vCenter can run as VM

> Any other tips or advice?

• add NICs if you can

• you could change the order within the PortGroup when accessing the nics

PGs | cos | VMnet | vKernel+vMotion

-

---

NIC1 | 1st | 2nd | 1st

NIC2 | 2nd | 1st | 2nd

2nd ... (could also go in standby nics)

you can extend this scheme also when you have more nic´s.

so you have preferred nics´s for each portgroup and failsafe if any nic fails

• which SAN do you use?

most FC SANs have 2 ports per SAN Controller, that makes 4 IO ports

ESX1 -> SAN.C1.port1

ESX1 -> SAN.C2.port1

ESX2 -> SAN.C1.port2

ESX2 -> SAN.C2.port2

if you can setup the above schematics you could do vMotion (well you have to setup the correct LUN masking on your storage too)

hth,

Reinhard.

ps: Award points if you find answers helpful. Thanks.

[Wouter1]

The SAN is a Sun Storagetek 6140 and the other 2 ports are already in use. We're on a budget

Just a quick question: can you vmotion the vCenter if it's a VM?

[rpartmann]

Hi,

should be no problem

bye ,

Reinhard

ps: Award points if you find answers helpful. Thanks.