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vitaprimo
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How can I set up a vDS without uplink port group(s)?

That's pretty much it.

I made a little visual of what I'm trying to do though:

vDS-no-uplink.png

I tried it already but the uplink port group is mandatory. A NIC doesn't actually have to be assigned to it but I'm a little uneasy of any possible related issues of not having any. Also, what happens with options such as Network I/O Control, Egress/Ingress Traffic Shaping and Load Balancing? They all are basically functions of the uplink port group either with the distributed port groups or the physical ports?

Also…:

vDS-no-uplink-flows.png

How does traffic flow? Y'know, given the uplink port group thingy. Does it need to go up and out like in a star topology (A in my little doodle above) or from distribport to distribport? Is the data flow governed in C or D when NIOC is being used? It's not compatible with NFS4.1 if I remember correctly, so I'm sort of thinking D, but I'm here to learn, so please correct me!

Thanks! 😀

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nachogonzalez
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Hey Mate, how are you, hope you are doing fine.

First of all, the uplink portgroup is mandatory, basically, it "simulates" the uplinks of a physical switch and it maps to a NIC.
Why would you have a Physical that has no uplinks? I don't think it is very useful unless you want to keep your machines connected between them but with no external access. 

A NIC doesn't actually have to be assigned to it but I'm a little uneasy of any possible related issues of not having any.
This is correct, the issue you will face here is that all the VMs in VLAN4095,3450,3451 and 3452 will be disconnected from the network.

Also, what happens with options such as Network I/O Control, Egress/Ingress Traffic Shaping and Load Balancing? They all are basically functions of the uplink port group either with the distributed port groups or the physical ports?
At a higher level they are handled by the vDS, for Load Balancing you can set specific policies per distibuted portgroup, as for the others I'm not 100% sure.

As for the traffic flow:
Yes, it needs to go up. But not to the portgroup, It will go to the pNICs, then to the pSwitch and it will be routed back to the Appliance.

Is the data flow governed in 
C or D when NIOC is being used? Neither C or D, it is governed by the vDS.

As for the NFS 4.1 and NIOC compatibilitly this post says it is compatible.
Using both Storage I/O Control & Network I/O Control for NFS - VMware vSphere Blog


Let me know if this was useful.

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nachogonzalez
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Hey Mate, how are you, hope you are doing fine.

First of all, the uplink portgroup is mandatory, basically, it "simulates" the uplinks of a physical switch and it maps to a NIC.
Why would you have a Physical that has no uplinks? I don't think it is very useful unless you want to keep your machines connected between them but with no external access. 

A NIC doesn't actually have to be assigned to it but I'm a little uneasy of any possible related issues of not having any.
This is correct, the issue you will face here is that all the VMs in VLAN4095,3450,3451 and 3452 will be disconnected from the network.

Also, what happens with options such as Network I/O Control, Egress/Ingress Traffic Shaping and Load Balancing? They all are basically functions of the uplink port group either with the distributed port groups or the physical ports?
At a higher level they are handled by the vDS, for Load Balancing you can set specific policies per distibuted portgroup, as for the others I'm not 100% sure.

As for the traffic flow:
Yes, it needs to go up. But not to the portgroup, It will go to the pNICs, then to the pSwitch and it will be routed back to the Appliance.

Is the data flow governed in 
C or D when NIOC is being used? Neither C or D, it is governed by the vDS.

As for the NFS 4.1 and NIOC compatibilitly this post says it is compatible.
Using both Storage I/O Control & Network I/O Control for NFS - VMware vSphere Blog


Let me know if this was useful.

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vitaprimo
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Thanks!

This is exactly what I needed. It's informative on one side and a sucks a little on the other bc one of my file servers, by Synology, reverted back to NFS v4 from 4.1. That''s option's  gone now if I downsize and have to give up vSAN.

I wanted to connect them but using another VM with its own passed-through NICs. I've had DMZ-style virtual switches, they've worked fine and they're actually kind of awesome because they trapped in the virtual environment, there's no wiring, and can do all sorts of setups, they weren't distributed virtual switches though so it  mandatory uplink threw me off this time and as I progressed came the options for the load balancing, then I remembered about NIOC and all that so I better came here to ask.

Maybe  the giant pictures were overkill but it was worth it. 😅

Thank you so much again, I hope you're doing excellent too.

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IRIX201110141
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Yes, its mandatory when creating a vDS to specify one uplink group because the GUI dont let you move forward without at least one uplink.

But when a Host joins this vDS its not mandatory to specify a vmnic. You will get a warning but the GUI let you add the Host.

Security, Traffic Shaping are configured on PG level.   The Loadbalacing can be configured on PG and Uplink level but you havent a usefull Uplink to it doesnt make any sense to speak about. Same for NIOC i think.

Regards,
Joerg

 

 

 

 

 

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