Can HyperV do vlan tagging like VMware

[dwchan]

Can anyone confirm if Microsoft HyperV have a similar virtual switch architecture that can support vlan tagging? Or does it need a separate vswtich , this separate NIC for each vlan you want to run within its hypervisor?

dwc

[Rumple]

From this site -

http://blogs.3sharp.com/ryanf/archive/2008/04/23/4887.aspx

I was excited when I heard that Hyper-V was going to include support for VLANs. What I didn't realize was that there would be some caveats to the deal. If you plan on using tagged VLANs to get support for multiple networks from one physical port, you need to know that Hyper-V works on a one-to-one relationship with interfaces.

To make it all work, you need to create your virtual interfaces (per the software and driver for your NIC) and assign them to the appropriate VLAN. Don't bother putting in any static IP information because as soon as you create a network in Hyper-V to accomodate your VMs, Hyper-V will create another connection on top of the VLAN adapter you've already created. Once this new interface is created, you can enter any static IP addresses there. Additionally, if you don't take into account the extra caveats below, you will have no network connectivity.

EXTRA CAVEATS:

1. Make sure you specify the correct VLAN number in the virtual network.

2. Make sure you specify the correct VLAN number in the network settings for the virtual machine.

[dwchan]

In short,do can you share multiple vlan from a single nic? Can hyper allow virtual switch reduncancy with mulitple nic?

[Rumple]

HyperV is just like vmware server at the moment...from what I can tell you need to have a physical nic for each vlan...

[dwchan]

Wow, so base on the feedback I get from here, the vswitch in HyperV is more less a dumb bridge? What if you want redunancy for the vswitch, do you need to create 2 vswitch and tie 2 nic inside the VM to its, or can you assist 2 or more NIC per vswitch like in ESX?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

vSwitch is a misnomer with regards to Hyper-V, they should just call it a bridge just like Xen, VMware Server, and everyone else does. You could try 802.3ad at the 'host' level and then use a bridge off that.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[cdickerson]

Vmware doesn't require a one-to-one relationship with regards to nics and vlans. You can very easily assign multiple vlans to a single nic (assuming your switch can support this). In the Cisco world you create a trunk (switchport mode trunk). I use one or more physical nics to one virtual switch and then create multiple port groups that represent the different vlans.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

That is correct for VMware ESX/ESXi, it is not correct for VMware Server v1.x or VMware Workstation. For those you have to bridge multiple adapters into the hypervisor.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[dwchan]

Can someone comment more on this statement "You could try 802.3ad at the 'host' level and then use a bridge off that." We currently have our esx 3.5 in a hp blade environment using virtual connect. We assign 2 physical NIC to the VM guest vSwitch. Physical, they map back to 4 physical port/cable on the HP virtual connect. We have set the cisco switch for vlan tagging and etherchannel. So in short, our vswitch has 2 nic (that take care of hardware failure on the physical server, also we truck 6 vlan on that switch. In addition, we have 2 physical virtual connect (one on each side), and each virtual connect has 2 physical 1.0G link. This take care of the physical cable, cisco switch port failure and hp virtual connect failure. With VMware, we are able to provision vm guest with multiple vlan, and still maintenance redundancy, and balance through put with only 2 NIC.

If what I am hearing or understanding about hyperV is true. In order for me to do the same think, I would have to have at least 6 (maybe 12 for redunancy) physical NIC on the hyperV server and setup 6 hyperV vswitch. Would this be a correct?

dwc

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Try setting up etherchannel to the HyperV system and see if you can create a bridge off the endpoint within Windows 2008 Server. On Xen this is possible but takes a bit of iptables manipulation. Not sure if the same is true with HyperV.

The HyperV bridge is nothing like the VMware ESX vSwitch. It sounds even more limited than the VMware Server/Workstation/Xen bridges.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization