6.7 Network config (Port Group)

[Antonythegreatd]

I have 2 ports for redundancy.  Both are trunked.  I wan the standard config.

• From a Cisco switch, should I make this a Cisco Port Group? 
• I think VMware is handling the load balancing, so I just need to regular trunks, correct???
• How would I configure the vSwitch?
• Anything special if I do not want the different vlan VM's to talk to each other?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Since you wand to use different VLANs, configure the ports on the Cisco switch as "Trunk" (802.1q) ports, and allow the appropriate VLANs.

You may then create different port groups on the vSwitch, and configure them with the required VLAN-ID.

Please note that a port group for the physical switch port's native/default VLAN must not have the VLAN-ID set!

With the default settings on the vSwitch, the traffic will be balanced in Round-Robin manner, and fail over to the other vmnic in case of an uplink failure.

In order to allow VMs in different VLANs to communicate with each other you'll need to have routing in place. This can be either a physical, or a virtual router. ESXi itself doesn't provide such an option.

André

[Antonythegreatd]

Thank you for the reply!!

Still some more;

Since you wand to use different VLANs, configure the ports on the Cisco switch as "Trunk" (802.1q) ports, and allow the appropriate VLANs.

Done.  So no Cisco "Port Group" which is different then the VMware port group.

You may then create different port groups on the vSwitch, and configure them with the required VLAN-ID.

Perfect, I was worried I couldn't do this, and it was one of my problems.

Please note that a port group for the physical switch port's native/default VLAN must not have the VLAN-ID set!

Can you be specific, I am not sure what you are talking about here.

Under port groups, I have 3; Servers153, Management Network 154, and VM Network 254.  all are explicitly defined on vSwitch0.

On the physical Cisco switch, it is a trunk, and assigning a vlan to the trunk makes no sense.

With the default settings on the vSwitch, the traffic will be balanced in Round-Robin manner, and fail over to the other vmnic in case of an uplink failure.

Perfect TY.

In order to allow VMs in different VLANs to communicate with each other you'll need to have routing in place. This can be either a physical, or a virtual router. ESXi itself doesn't provide such an option.

Perfect TY!

[sk84]

a.p.​ is talking about native vlans (or sometimes called default vlans) on the physical switch.

See:

Native VLAN explanation - 8721 - The Cisco Learning Network

switchport_trunk_native_vlan.html - Cisco

If you don't have a native/default vlan configured on the physical switch don't care about it.

[a_p_]

On the physical Cisco switch, it is a trunk, and assigning a vlan to the trunk makes no sense.

There are situations in which this is done, i.e. a physical port Trunk port may have multiple (or all) VLANs allowed, but also has a default VLAN configured. An example would be an environment with automated installations via PXE, where the installation VLAN is set as the default VLAN. Anyway, the point is that if you need such a VLAN on a virtual port group, this port group must not have a VLAN ID configured, because the VLAN ID is already removed from the network frame by the physical switch.

André