Best vNetwork environnment

[sjadapa]

Hi Gurus,

I am planning to setup a Cluster with 5 ESX 4.0 hosts. I have 4 physical nics on each ESX server.

How can i best utilize them.

I do have two plans which are attached with this discussion. Can any one suggest which is the best practise.

Any inputs or suggestions are highly appreciated.

Jadapa RHCE, MCSA

[FranckRookie]

Hi Jadapa,

Your second solution is not a good idea: try to always isolate your VMKernel network.

The first solution is good. But there is no redundancy for the Console.

You can propose a vSwitch with the console and VM port group attached to two pNics, and a second vSwitch for vMotion with two physical attachments. Or if your VMs need a lot of bandwith, have 3 links attached to the first vSwitch and only one for vMotion...

Regards

Franck

[Kahonu84]

Aloha - If possible, I would add a two port NIC and segregate out production. This would also give you added redundancy.

Bill

[bstrignano]

This is how I provisioned my NICs before I transistioned to 10 GIG

vSwitch0 Add both vmnic0 and vmnic3

Add the service console and vmotion port groups

Override the default NIC settings on both port groups

set vmnic0 as active and vmnic3 as standby for the console port group

set vmnic3 as active and vmnic0 as standby for the vmotion port group

This will provide segregation and redundancy when both nics are up

on vSwitch1 add nic 2 and 3

Set both to active

HTH

Brent

[FranckRookie]

Hi all,

I forgot to mention that your virtual configuration greatly depends on the physical one: number of switches, if they are VLAN capable, if there are different LANs (or even DMZ), if you have several subnets for the VMs, if you have a dedicated switch for admin and vMotion ...

Regards

Franck