Vmotion, DRS, SC, NFS -- Network Design Question

[rgv75]

I just want to run by my design strategy to the community for constructive feedback and clarification. We have an ongoing collocation project, moving our data center from our HQ to a collocation site. I'm tasked to put together our VI3 environment. I'm fortunate to be able to design this infrastructure properly with enough money in the budget, so I'm going all out on the design.

I have (10) 1GB NIC ports on each Dell PE R900 servers (3 host servers in the VI cluster). I want to configure networking as follows:

• 2x 1GB NIC ports for Service Console (NIC Team using IP hash)

• This NIC team will be connected to a Management VLAN with other Service Processors or Management ports

• 2x 1GB NIC ports for Vmotion (active/passive mode)

• This NIC team will be connected to an isolated VLAN for Vmotion only

• 2x 1GB NIC ports for VMkernel Storage for NFS and a 2nd SC to initiate or mount the NFS (NIC Team using IP hash)

• This NIC team will be connected to a Storage VLAN connected to a FAS3040

• 2x 1GB NICports for the VMs (NIC Team using IP hash)

• This NIC team will be connected to our Production VLAN

• 2x 1GB for spare or future use

The questions I have are as follows:

1. How does my design look?

2. Will DRS and HA work in the configuration above, or will I need to relocate or reconfigure the VLAN configurations for SC and NFS/SC? I can setup the VLANs to route among the VLANs.

3. Where does the HA heartbeat reside?

Any tip or comment is appreciated. Thank you.

[java_cat33 · Accepted solution]

I think you are doing well so far. I wouldn't keep 2 spare nics though however, assign them all to your VM's vswitch.

For HA to work - your ESX servers must have access to shared storage where the VM's reside, DNS must be 100% A OK.

The HA heartbeat resides with the Service Console - ensure that each ESX server has 2 Service consoles on different VLAN's that can communicate with every other ESX Server Console.

You must have a vmkernel for the NFS traffic....

[rgv75]

Thanks for the quick response. I have one last question: Can you clarify when you said "...ensure that each

ESX server has 2 Service consoles on different VLAN's that can

communicate with every other ESX Server Console." Do you mean, I have to put a SC on every VLAN that I have in my design, and not just one but two SCs? For example, are you saying I need a SC in the VM VLAN? Thanks again!

[java_cat33]

Yes have two Service Consoles for redundancy. You could have one on your management VLAN and the other on your NFS/Vmotion VLAN - but yes, definitely on seperate VLAN's.

You don't need to have one on your VM's VLAN.