dedicated switch for VMotion

[RickPollock]

We are investigating purchasing a dedicated switch for our VMotion traffic. This would isolate the traffic and take care of the security issues. I've also heard having a dedicated switch for VMotion significantly increases performance. I've only used 1Gb links, but I was wondering if 100Mbps links would be enough for VMotion to function properly.

Just trying to get a handle on others experiences...thanks ahead of time.

[pdrace]

From experience I would go with a gig connection. After a core switch change in our datacenter the nic that was being used for vmotion had renegotiated down to 100 meg.

I became aware of this while migrating vms, it was crawling.

[RickPollock]

Ok here is another question...

Say I have 2 clusters. Each has their own dedicated switch for VMotion. The nework is not visible to the other cluster. Can I still perform a cold migration between the clusters if the VMotion networks are not seen?

If not...what is the best way to move a VM between clusters...disconnect it and reconnect?

[mittim12]

The link below is the requirements for VMotion. Gigabit Ethernet Network is one of the requirements. Not saying a 100MB wouldn't work but as the pdrace said it will more than likely be to slow to be of use.

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[pdrace]

You can do a cold migration to a host as long as the destination has access to the shared volume or lun the vm resides on.

[RickPollock]

thats good to know. thanks for your help!

[smithg001]

Rick,

There is an increase in performance by moving to a single switch for vMotion, but here are some things to consider:

1. This configuration requires dedicated Physical Nics to just vMotion

2. This configuration leaves DRS and vMotion with a single point of failure

3. The same security concearns can be addressed by using vLan Isolation for the vMotion traffic.

100 Mbit network connections are not enough for vMotion to work reliably. It may function with very small memory amounts in use by the VM's, but it will not be able to handle a normal environment.

There may be other restrictions if you plan to leverage storage vMotion but I am not fully aware of those. I am still researching what network connections are used to initiate a Storage vMotion or Replication.

Gregory Smith