Separate SC and VM on vSwitches - no downtime

[Walfordr]

Here is my current setup:

VC 2.5

4 hosts running ESX 3.5 update 3

Everything on the network is setup on 1 virtual switch (default vSwitch0) with 1 NIC. Yes 1 NIC the person that did the install “had not seen a NIC failed before” – I am in the process of fixing this.

So on vSwitch0 there are:

SC port group

VMkernel portgroup – yes, we VMotion over this 1 gigabit interface

VM port group – with 5-8 VM on each host

See attached screenshot. *The ESX hostname and VMs are removed.

What I’d like to accomplish:

1. Split the SC, VM and VMKernel into 2 vSwitches.

a. VM and VMKernel will be on the same vSwitch – not BP but only have 4 nics.

i. This vSwitch will be NIC team

2. SC will be on its own vSwitch and NIC teamed for best practice redundancy.

Is it possible to separate SC and VM & VMKernel port groups on vSwitches with little or no downtime for the VMs network? What is the best approach?

My plan is/was to create the new vSwitch. Add a new SC then remove the old one from vSwitch0.

I am going to try this in again in my lab but thought I wouldd run it by the community. The first time I had tested this, the lab VC lost connection to the test ESX host.

[Gerrit_Lehr · Accepted solution]

Yes, this should be possible the way you are planing to do it. Moving the SC to another vSwitch will not cause any downtime to the VMs. However, it I remember correctly, teaming the NICs for the VMNetzwork vSwitch will cause a short interruption.

Kind regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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[jb12345]

Create a new service console on a new vSwitch then you can remove the service console from the vSwitch your VMs are using. I have mine setup with 2 NICs for management, 2 NICs for VMs & 2 NICs for iSCSI all set to be redundant.

If you have the hosts in a cluster and have multiple service consoles you want to add the 'das.allowNetwork Service Console' option to your HA Advanced Options.

[Gerrit_Lehr]

I just reread, there might be interruption when adding a second physical NIC for teaming:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/235162

Kind regards,

Gerrit Lehr

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