Hello,
I am fairly new to VMWare in terms of advanced configuration. I am doing my first true production quality configuration. It currently consists of an IBM Bladecenter H chassis, 4 Cisco 3012 Ethernet switch modules, and two HS21 XM blades (32GB RAM, 2 quad-core Intel E5430, Broadcom 4-port Ethernet high-speed exp card). I have ESX3.5 installed on one blade (EVC enabled) and all Cisco switch modules configured the same at this point. The ESX installation is accessible via VirtualCenter server. My main quesion is: what is the proper load balancing setup for these 3012 catalyst switches using trunk ports for the pnics? I'm beginning to wish I had sprung for the stackable switch modules simply because all the information I've come across about the IP Hash load balancing indicates that the physical switch must have EtherChannel configured on the ports to which pnics are connected and you can't EtherChannel across multiple catalyst 3012 switches.
My current vswitch configuration is:
The current configuration for the port on each 3012 ESM that vnic0 and vnic1 are connected to is:
interface GigabitEthernet0/1
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode trunk
switchport nonegotiate
spanning-tree portfast trunk
The 4 uplinks on the 3012s are trunked and port-channeled back to a 6509 core switch as follows:
interface Port-channel1
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode dynamic desirable
interface GigabitEthernet0/15
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode dynamic desirable
channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/16
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode dynamic desirable
channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/17
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode dynamic desirable
channel-group 1 mode on
!
interface GigabitEthernet0/18
switchport trunk native vlan 200
switchport mode dynamic desirable
channel-group 1 mode on
You can see i have two nics attached to the vSwitch, each nic is connected to a trunk port on a different Catalyst 3012 (I/O bay 1 and 2). I have the load balancing on the service console port currently set to "Route based on IP Hash" and have the load balancing on vSwitch0 set to "...based on virtual port ID" but I can't EtherChannel these two ports across the two switches. Everything during setup and initial configuration appears to be working (took me some time to figure out setting Service Console port to VLAN 4095; prior to that no connectivity at all). What is the proper load balancing setting for vSwitch0 and Service Console in this case and will the IP Hash routing cause me problems in the future since these nics are not EtherChannel?
Any input here is greatly appreciated.
Regard,
Brad C.