Newbie Needs Help

[jbarron]

I have a Dell PowerEdge Server wtih ESXi 3.5.

This server has 6 NICS on it, I currently have them all on 1 physical switch not Vlaned or anything. The physical switch is shared with the rest of the network. How should this be configure? What is the best way to configure this???

I am also adding a Equalogic SAN to this, I do have 2 dell 5424 poweredge switches for the san, what is the best route to do this too

Thanks for your help

[paulkbeyer]

Hello mate,

Well, I reckon 1 port for your Service Console, 1 port for your VMKernel (vmotion), 2 ports bundled into an Etherchannel for your production network data and 2 ports, one going to each of your poweredge switches for multipath access to your iSCSI SAN (I'm assuming your SAN is iSCSI connected).

I'd use VLANs on your Ethernet switches to keep your Production network seperate to your vMotion traffic and put your Service Console on a Management VLAN if you can handle the administrative overhead for such a small setup, but it will do you good in the long run if you grow.

Hope this all helps.

Don't be shy with the points button if it does.

Paul.

[PaulSvirin]

You can have a look at the hints in

The best way for SAN is to separate it physically from the generic network traffic. Thus, i.e. 2 NICs have to be dedicated to SAN.

You can also try configure SAN traffic without auto-negotiation to speed it up.

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iSCSI SAN software

http://www.starwindsoftware.com