Cisco UCS multiple VNICs using same PNIC

[dubfunkle]

Hi there, I would like to understand if it makes any difference if you create multiple VNICs when in reality you are using the same PNICs.  I am simplifying this as much as possible.  Our setup uses multiple UCS VNICs on different switches but my aim is to eliminate some standard switches.  Now my concern is here, does it make any difference if I add the available VNIC's (once removed from the standard switches) to the distributed switch when in reality they are using the same physical NIC?  Hope you can understand me   Thanks!

[larsonm]

I'd suggest reviewing Cisco's design guide for UCS with NSX here:  http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/products/nsx/vmware-nsx-on-cisco-n7kucs-design-guide.pdf

In this design our goals are to achieve Active-Active forwarding across both Cisco UCS fabrics, especially for the host-to-host VXLAN virtual machine traffic, as well as vMotion and IP Storage, with a simple and repeatable configuration for every host. To that end, we will provision the Cisco UCS host physical adapter with just two vNICs mapping to two VMware VDS uplinks. Multiple vmknics will be used for VXLAN, vMotion, and IP Storage for fabric load balancing, and NIOC will be enabled providing QoS for all traffic types. Management traffic will have a standard active-passive configuration with a single vmknic.

[ahandoo]

You can create multiple vnic in UCS which can be mapped to different FI's (FI-A and FI-B). It will give you path redundancy.

Eg. You have created 4-vnic's in UCS vnic 1 and 2 mapped to FI-A and vnic 3 an 4 mapped to FI-B. If connectivity is down from FI-A side, traffic can be forwarded from FI-B.

Once you create vnics it UCS, it will be presented as a pnic to ESXi. You can create different switches in ESXi for the segregation of traffic.