vmnic load balancing

[AlexNG_]

Hi all,

After a lot of reading, and not finding what I'm looking for, I just ask a question to the gurus.... :smileyblush:

Ok, the situation is as follows:

Actually 2 ESX 3.5 U4 (in a near future about 50) and vCenter 2.5U4.

Each ESX has 6 nics, configured as follows:

2 vmnics for SC and vMotion

4 vmnics for VMs but, as follos:
2 vmnics to one core switch
2 vmnics to another core switch

We've a lot of VLANs, and for easy understanding i'll simplify a bit....

Switchs are not stacked and, actually they will not be upgraded to do so.

We want to send one VLAN through 2 vmnics to switch A and the rest of VLANs throgh the other two nics to switch B. I'll call the first ones PortGroupA and the rest PortGroupB (in fasct PortGoups, because we've a lot of vlans....).

So PortGroupA with 2 vmnics to switch A, and PortGroupB with 2 nics to SwitchB

What I'm looking for is if it's possible to set PortGroupA with a 2Active-2Passive vmnics and PortGroupB 2Passive-2Active vmnics, BUT, if any of the 2vmnic team (in any of both PortGroups) fails then, the ESX should balance ALL the PG traffic to the other two nics.... A bit confusing, yes....

Let see:

vSwitch with vmnic2, 3, 4, 5

PortGroupA with active nics vmnic2 and 3, and passive nics vmnic4 and 5

PortGroupB with active nics vmnic4 and 5, and passive nics vmnic2 and 3

What I want... if vmnic2 or 3 fails, then PortGroup balance ALL network activity to vmnic4 and 5, and the same in the other way, if 4 or 5 fails, then balance everithing to 2 and 3.

Hope anybody understands all that, and can give me some hints or directions on that! :smileygrin:

AlexNG

[jbruelasdgo]

actually you could achieve that with VMware

but I need to tell you this: your network team would have to be very careful with all the trunks, VLANs, etc

Jose

[AlexNG_]

Hi Jose,

Ok, but not sure about the right steps... Could you please give me any hint?

Alex