ESX Trunk & Teaming

[athlon_crazy]

First, forgive me for my little knowledge on networking but I have some questions on how trunk & teaming works on ESX. Kindly refer my attachment to understand the situation below :

My Setup

• Switch-to-switch trunk Pro-curve01 & Pro-curve02 on port 23 & 24

• Create vlan "97" on both switch

• On ESX, create "Backup LAN" with vlan id = 97

ESX1

• Pro-curve01 = vmnic1 = port 5

• Pro-curve02 = vmnic2 = port 5

ESX2

• Pro-curve01 = vmnic1 = port 6

• Pro-curve02 = vmnic2 = port 6

VLAN 97 now working properly, I can ping VM A & B (vlan 97) between ESX hosts.

Question

1. Since trunk switch-to-switch already been done, do I still need to trunk from switch to ESX?

2. As per my understanding if ESX01 using only one switch port 5 & 6, I can trunk this two port & do some load balance but, when using 2 switch with redundancy setup, is it possible to do trunk?

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite

http://www.no-x.org

[JeffDrury · Accepted solution]

1. Since trunk switch-to-switch already been done, do I still need to trunk from switch to ESX?

The trunk from the switch to ESX is what encapsulates the multiple VLAN's. If you add additional VLAN's, the ports connected to ESX servers will need to be trunked to allow all VLAN tags to be passed to the ESX box. Once ESX gets the VLAN tags then the vSwitch will decide which port groups to send individual traffic to based on VLAN assignment.

2. As per my understanding if ESX01 using only one switch port 5 & 6, I can trunk this two port & do some load balance but, when using

2 switch with redundancy setup, is it possible to do trunk?

If you are using only one switch then you can setup an 802.3ad etherchannel link that will allow load balancing across multiple ports. This is not possible with more than one switch as 802.3ad is not possible across multiple switch chassis unless you are using a stacked switch configuration. With the multiple switches you still need to setup trunk ports in order to pass VLAN tags as mentioned in the first answer. If you have to choose between the two solutions I would recommend the redundant switches as this will provide you a more redundant configuration.

[athlon_crazy]

1. Yes u r correct! I did some test by creating another vlan LACP "98" :

On both Pro-curve

VLAN SETUP -> create VLAN "98" then add the same port I used for vlan "97"

VLAN port config -> PVID remain "1"

On ESX create port group using vlan id "98" on same vSwitch with vlan "97"

Result : VM C & D on vlan "98" can ping each other whether on same or different esx.

Then trunk / LACP port 0/10 & 0/11 & for vlan 100 for MSA 2012i iscsi

On ESX, create new vSwitch, team 2x vmnics, create service console & vmkernel

Then set vlan id for service console & vmkernel to vlan "100"

This also work as expected! ESX can see iscsi LUN without problem.

So each port connecting to ESX need to be trunked before it can talk with ESX.

2. Stacked switch configuration? Actually, I dont know what this all about..nvm I will google this later on.. BTW, redundant is good thing but do this limited on how many virtual nic I have? and do I still able to create multiple vlan using same nics & same vSwitch?

vcbMC-1.0.6 Beta

vcbMC-1.0.7 Lite