VMkernel / Vmotion design question in Vsphere

[JasonVmware]

Hello All,

Just wondering if the game has changed a bit in vSphere from ESX 3.5 in regaurds to setting up your virtual swithes and vmotion. I remeber in 3.5 you would want to try and segment your vmotion traffic and put them on dedicated nics when possible, however I have the following setup below and vmotion won't work unless the Vmkernel can communicate with the service console forcing the vmkernel to be on the same subnet / vlan asthe service console.

vSwitch0

vmnic0 - Service Console - on default lan (192.168.1.X)

vmni1 - Service Console - on defaut lan

vSwitch1

vmnic2 - Vmkernel (vmotion) - VLAN7 (192.168.2.X)

vmnic3 - Vmkernel (vmotion) - VLAN 7

vSwitch2

vmnic4 - Vmnetwork - on default lan (192.168.1.X)

vmnic5 - Vmnetwork

vmnic6 - Vmnetwork

vmnic7 -VMnetwork

If I drop the VLAN on the VMkernel and change the ip address to 192.168.1.x it works flawlessly, however if the VMkernel is on a different subnet it will not vmotion. When the VMkernel is on a different subnet it can vmkping each other just fine but nothing else as it should becuase of the subnet. Is a service console still needed in vSwitch1 to communicate with the 192.168.1.x network if the VMkernel is on a different subnet? I know they fixed this limitation with iSCSI but does this still need to be in place for vmotion?

Any help would be greatly appricated.

[weinstein5]

vmotion does not need to see a service console port even in VI-3 - I would take a looke at your physical network making sure the physical ports the pNICs on vswitch 1 are configured for the vlans -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[JasonVmware]

Thanks for the response,

So I have simplified the configuration for troubleshooting purposes and here is the current setup

- One switch with all connections plugged into the 1 switch

- All VLAN's on the switch and virtual switches have been removed

First host:

vSwitch0

vmnic0 - Dedicated to service console port group - 192.168.1.x

vmnic1 - Dedicated to service console port group

vSwitch1

vmnic2 - Dedicated to VMkernel port group for vmotion 192.168.2.2

vmnic3 - Dedicated to VMkernel port group for vmotion 192.168.2.3

vswitch2

vmnic4 - Dedicated to VM Network - 192.168.1.x

vmnic5 - Dedicated to VM Network

vmnic6 - Dedicated to VM Network

vmnic7 - Dedicated to VM Network

Second host:

vSwitch0

vmnic0 - Dedicated to service console port group - 192.168.1.x

vmnic1 - Dedicated to service console port group

vSwitch1

vmnic2 - Dedicated to VMkernel port group for vmotion 192.168.2.4

vmnic3 - Dedicated to VMkernel port group for vmotion 192.168.2.5

vswitch2

vmnic4 - Dedicated to VM Network - 192.168.1.x

vmnic5 - Dedicated to VM Network

vmnic6 - Dedicated to VM Network

vmnic7 - Dedicated to VM Network

All are plugged into the same switch atm just for testing and the vmkping can ping all the ip's in the vmkernel subnet, however when a vmotion is kicked off all pre-flight checks pass but it just stops at 10% and hangs here then gives an error message that it can't communicate with the host

If I change the VMkernel ip addresses to the 192.168.1.X network it works with no problems, so it seems like it needs something from the service console which it shouldn't ?

Any other help would be greatly appricated as I would like to segment the vmotion off the main network

[EVW]

Maybe you added the Default gateway on the SC or VMkernel ports, which is what you do not need.