Is there a way for an ESX host to failover/vmotion its VMs over if the network trunk is down?
Senario is that the ESX has a network trunk to it, assuming this trunk fails (NIC fails, or cable broken), all hosts using the virtual switch will go down. We are tight on NICs so we can only use 1 NIC per trunk, we can't us NIC teaming.
So we are wondering if the VC is smart enough to failover VMs if it detects network failure on one of the hosts,
You need at least one working interface to VMotion VM to another host.
If you can not connect VMkernel to this interface for some reason, Suspend VM, migrate to another host and Resume.
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VMware vExpert '2009
Hi Sorry for being unclear..
Our configuration is like this
NIC1 - VMkernel, Service Network, Vmotion
NIC2 - VMkernel, Service Network, Vmotion
NIC1 and NIC 2 is teamed.
NIC3 - Trunk to our switch (production vlans)
NIC3 is our virtual switch for the all the VMs in that host. Assuming this NIC3 goes down, all the VMs in this host will lose production vlan network connectivity. Is there any way the ESX is able to failover to another host if the NIC3 goes down?
No standard way, but you can install additional NIC and provide failover for VM network.
Or you can set up networking this way:
NIC1: Service Console active, VMkernel standby, VM standby
NIC2: Service Console standby, VMkernel active, VM standby
NIC3: VM active, Service Console standby, VMkernel standby
Any NIC fails - you still have full network connectivity, and you can even lose anther NIC, you'll still be able to migrate VMs off the host without downtime.
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VMware vExpert '2009
So that means the ESX cluster cannot actually failover a ESX host automatically if it detects failure on 1 NIC right?
Our service console/vmkernel is actually in an isolated network, whereas our vm network is trunked to our core switch. Our other challenge is also that we cannot afford to add in another NIC.
If NIC fail - ESX can not automatically migrate VMs, you'll have to do it manually.
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VMware vExpert '2009