Virtual switch design in vSphere ESXi

[TXE]

I am planning to upgrade our environment from ESX 3.5 to vSphere ESXi and I am a little unsure about how to best utilize the network adapters.

In the old design we have it like this

vmnic0 - SC and vmotion

vmnic1 - Vlans for the VMs

vmnic2 - SAN (iSCSI)

vmnic3 - SAN (iSCSI)

vmnic4- Vlans for the VMs

vmnic5 - SC and vmotion

Since there is no SC in vSphere ESXi do I need to dedicate 2 adapters only for vmotion or should I run them together with the normal network traffic like shown underneath?

vmnic0 - Vlans for the VMs/vmotion

vmnic1 - Vlans for the VMs/vmotion

vmnic2 - SAN (iSCSI)

vmnic3 - SAN (iSCSI)

vmnic4- Vlans for the VMs/vmotion

vmnic5 - Vlans for the VMs/vmotion

It would be great if anyone had any viewpoints on this.

[marcelo_soares]

It does not have SC but it have the "management network", which is the equivalent for the service console network, with the difference that is a vmkernel port also. I think you can keep the same network layout, just having the management network instead of the SC portgroup.

Marcelo Soares

VMWare Certified Professional 310/410

Virtualization Tech Master

Globant Argentina

Consider awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[brettparlier]

The original design seems like it would be more efficient and better protected. The way you have the network adapters seperated would provide a little more fault tolerance than the new design if they are port channeled on the physocal switch. The management network (as mentioned in another post) is very similar to your SC so there is still a requirement to have a connection for it.

[AndreTheGiant]

On ESXi there isn't the SC, but you can add a vmkernel interface for management.

So I suggest to isolate VM traffic by VMotion traffic and (if possible) by management traffic.

You can use different VLAN id for this scope.

See also:

Andre