nic for vmotion

[tdubb123]

currently I have my service console and vmkernel sharing one nic and all vms share another nic. what do i have to do to create a nic just for vmotion? is that the recommended way of doing things?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Hi Tony, to enable vmotion, you would go to Configuration\Networking and open the properties for the vswitch that has the vmkernel port created on it. Then edit the vmkernel port and enable the vmotion option.

If you have the option of adding more NICs to the system, a dual port card would give you some redundancy for both the SC/vmkernel network and your VM network. You should also consider isolating vmotion traffic with a VLAN or seperate LAN as the contents of a VMs memory are transfered in cleartext.

[cferalva]

Hi tonyw!

The best that you can do, I think, is integrate another GB NIC -> make a 2 GB team for the VM's and the VMotion (it's so easy to do), it gives you HA and load balancing.

Is a good idea to let one nic only for service console and not overload it, because this is not his only function, for example: if you have configured HA, the agents uses this nic to send/receive the heartbeat...

but this is only my opinion!

Carlos.

[tdubb123]

hi, how do I configure teaming? say I want to team two nics for just vms. is there someting I need to do on the physical switch as well?

[c8210304]

setup a trunk or channel whatever your supplier calls it and setup the vswitch with 2 active nics and loadbalancing on ip hashing

[tdubb123]

are you saying I should be using 2 vmkernel ports?

one for vmotion

one for vmkernel for iscsi

?

Then one for service console

I have two onboard nics and then a dual port nic card

4 ports total

[Abhishek124]

yes, U should have 2 ports .....1 for vmotion and 1 for ISCSI....You can share Service console and vmkernel Port for Vmotion

[cferalva]

Hi tonyw!

Configuring teaming in ESX es so easy. The only thing that yo have to do is bind your virtual switch with the 2 phisical NIC.

Hope that it can help you!

Carlos.

[tdubb123]

should i really be teaming the ports for just the vms?

kinda confused

I have 2 esx servers using iscsi

vmnic0 - service console and vmkernel - vswitch0

vmnic2 - vms - vswitch1

vmnic3 - vmotion - vswitch2

vmnic1 - not used

what should i do?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

If all you have is 4 pNICS then I suggest:

You should have one portgroup for the service console. One for iSCSI vmkernel device. These can be on vSwitch0 using a single pNIC.

You should then have a pNIC for just the vMotion vmkernel portgroup on vSwitch1.

You should then have have 2 pNICs for vSwitch2 usable by your VMs.

Ideally you really want 6 pNICs for full redundancy of this configuration. Note that vMotion should be all by itself for performance and security reasons. It is possible to use a VLAN off vSwitch0 and place its pNIC on vSwitch0 but performance is the utmost for vMotion as is security. Splitting up vMotion and your iSCSI network is extremely important for performance reasons.

If you can get 6 pNICS, I would. If not use one for SC/iSCSI, one for vMotion and 2 for VMs for best performance and security.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky, author of the forthcoming 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', publishing January 2008, (c) 2008 Pearson Education. Available on Rough Cuts at http://safari.informit.com/9780132302074