I have an esxi 6.5 update 2 standalone server in a test lab.
I can create a vswitch with two nics for failover. When one of the nics goes down, the failover works as it should….yaaaa.
The problem is when the failed network ports becomes active again, the vm’s on that vswitch can no longer communicate with the network. They can communicate with vm’s on that vswitch but not beyond. The only way to get it to work again is to remove the nic that failed from the vswitch. Once removed communication starts working again. I'm then able to add the restored nic to the vswitch without problem.The problem is reproducible and happens to any vswitch that has nic failover.
Any Suggestions?
Found the answer. It was the Cisco switch. We had both nics going from the ESXi server into the same Cisco switch which was causing a loop back. The switch guy added a command to fix that and all is good now and things are running a lot faster also.
When I was new to ESXi, I too was wondering how nic teaming and failover would work.
This thread may help:
Hi,
Would you able to share the vswitch's config?
It really depends in how do you configure your vswitch and also that physical switches' ports are configured correctly.
Screenshots are all on that thread I started a while ago.
I don't like having Physical Adapters on standby, which is a real waste.
I like to team all available ones at the same time, and should one fail (someone tugging on a patch cord), the remaining one still works.
Found the answer. It was the Cisco switch. We had both nics going from the ESXi server into the same Cisco switch which was causing a loop back. The switch guy added a command to fix that and all is good now and things are running a lot faster also.
That's really exciting, I think a lot of folks will team their nics onto the same switch and believe there'll be parallel speeds to that, can someone from VM confirm or correct otherwise? What about standalone switches that are not managable?