ISCSI, SC, VMotion vswitch config

[tfapps]

I have 2 pnics with 2 vlans (ISCSI & Vmotion) on the same port groups running to each server. I figured the best config would be to put VMotion, ISCSI, and ISCSI SC on the same vswitch. This way ESX can control load balancing/failover on both nics. Is it OK to have these 3 networks on the same vswitch.?

The other setup I had in mind would be to throw VMotion on a seperate Vswith and configure Active/Standby adapters, but I figure there would be potential wasted bandwith when VMotion is not in use. Any thoughts or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Tony

[beyondvm]

This setup is not necessarily bad but VMware usually recommends that you use different physical medium for VMotion and IP storage (iSCSI or NFS). This is because with your setup there could be contention between storage and the VMotion traffic. This wont be a problem until you try and VMotion a bunch of VMs at the same time and this could cause write-delays on the iSCSI volumes (worst case scenario). If you have the extra physical NIC, then seperate it out.

Short answer: Will it work? yes. Best practice? no.

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[tfapps]

So then it would be better to set to seperatevswitches for ISCSI and Vmotion and set each others pnics and standby adapters.

[beyondvm · Accepted solution]

So you want to have 2 switches like this:

vSwitch1 (VMotion):

PNIC A - Primary

PNIC B - Secondary

vSwitch2 (iSCSI):

PNIC B - Primary

PNIC A - Secondary

This wont work because each physical NIC an only be bound to one vSwitch. If you dont have any other physical NIC in the machine then I would continue with your current setup and use 802.3ad port agregation (Route based on ip hash on the esx side) on the 2 NIC on 1 vSwitch versus the failover pair so the bandwith will be spread across both NIC (Active-Active versus Active-Passive).

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If you found any of my comments helpful please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

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[tfapps]

Thanks for the info.