looking for a networking best practices publication

[tharpy]

The following quote re ESX Host network configuration came from one of our IBM technical pre-sales reps in the Vancouver area....

"IBM and VMware have long ago jointly published a best practice of 2 Ethernet interfaces (1Gb/s each) teamed for redundancy and bandwidth - segregated in to 3 VLANs - to service the three channels (management, vmotion, and vmnetwork)"...

Does anyone have a link to this document? I can't seem to find it and I'd really like to read it.

Thanks.

[cjt]

I see this only applicable in a blade scenario (scale out architectures), or if you have low consolidation ratios per ESX server.

For Scale-Up server architectures, I always advise a min of 6 nics per ESX host - 8 being optimal

2 x Service Console

2 x VMotion

4 x VM Traffic.

In the days of ESX2.5 - Installing ESX on IBM blades was a nightmare, as an HS20 only had 2 nics available. you had to manually team the available nics by hacking around in the service console.

Now with the arrival of ESX3.x and 3.5.x, its no issue - just aggregate the available nics, and you can customise port group/VLANs to your hearts content.

I will try and source this doco for you from the IBM people I still keep in contact with.

[penghaug · Accepted solution]

hi,

Have not seen the document that you're looking for, but if you want to read about some different network configurations take a look here:

-Pål-André

[PaulCooper]

"IBM and VMware have long ago jointly published a best practice of 2 Ethernet interfaces (1Gb/s each) teamed for redundancy and bandwidth - segregated in to 3 VLANs - to service the three channels (management, vmotion, and vmnetwork)"...Thanks.

If you can, find out if this was based on ESX 2.5. Things have moved on a lot over the past couple of years and the document may not be relevant anymore or worse may generate a sub-optimal design.It is also worth considering 'proven practices' vs 'best practices' since what is best for one deployment may not be the best for another - check out viops.vmware.com for an explanation of the distinction between the two. (If you register on VI:OPS here is the document that explains it well)

[azn2kew]

I would use 2 NICs for every portgroup for redundancy purposes and only use 2 NICs for VM Network instead of 4. I would remove 2 NICs and dedicated for other use (DMZ, iSCSI, Backup) as needed. Edward has great write ups on combinations of NICs scenario and you can read more details at

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[tharpy]

just want to make it clear to our reading audience....that was not my quote. As I found it contrary to the best practices we employ in our service delivery, I was looking for information that would either support or refute what's being told to our customers.

Thanks for responding.

Michael

[marklanc]

It's annoying that everybody seems to have a different answer. I don't think this is really a "well, depends on your situation" barring maybe a dedicated NIC for a private mgmt network if required. NIC's are relatively inexpensive. Is there any official "Best Practices" document from VMware?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

There is no whitepaper from VMware as you can set networking up many different ways. Check out

Topology Blogs from myself and Ken Cline's Vswitch Debate and Eric Siebert's Routing blog posts to fully understand how this all works. All three blog posts agree with each other actually so they are as close to best practice as you are going to get. If you are more interested in Security Best practices check out my new book.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, Virtualization Practice Analyst[/url]
Now Available: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
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