vMotion 3 hosts direct connect

[tinglyfox]

I have 3 hosts with each 2 x RJ-45 10gbit free I'd like to use for vMotion. I have no 10gbit hardware switch, so I need to connect them directly.

How do I best accomplish this?

[VysakhNair]

tinglyfox​

Do you have vCenter in your environment and these hosts are part of vCenter ?

[tinglyfox]

Yes they are all joined to a cluster in vCenter.

[VysakhNair]

tinglyfox​

How these hosts are connected to physical layer now? What is the speed supported on current uplink/switch

[tinglyfox]

I have management network in a single vswitch on a single 1gbit uplink to 1gbit switch.

I have VMs in a single vswitch on a single 1gbit uplink to 1gbit switch.

vMotion also in single vswitch with 1gbit uplink to 1gbit switch.

So management, VMs and vMotion resides in each their own vswitch separated by VLAN in the hardware switch.

vMotion looks like this:

Host 1: vSwitch1:vmkernel vMotion: vmnic3: 172.16.0.1

Host 2: vSwitch1:vmkernel vMotion: vnmic3: 172.16.0.2

Host 3: vSwitch1:vmkernel vMotion: vmnic3: 172.16.0.3

I tried to add vmnic6+7 to vswitch1 and remove vmnic3, and then inter-connected all the 3 hosts directly, but vMotion then fails.

[VysakhNair]

tinglyfox​

When you connect the 10G RJ45 ports to your 1G switch is it supported and showing connected with 1G speed ?

If supported create a new VMKernel port with that uplinks and enable vMotion on same after disabling vMotion on existing Mgmt vSwitch.

[tinglyfox]

vMotion has already been disabled on the management vSwitch, and runs separately.

I would like to get the throughput of the 10gbit ports, so connecting them to the 1gbit hardware switch will only get be 1gbit - however it is supported.

I'm more concerned with the config of the vmkernel.

I don't understand why adding the 10gbit RJ45 ports to the vMotion switch and connecting them all together doesn't work.

So perhaps I need to do a vSwitch with a vmkernel vMotion for each vmnic with each its own IP?

[VysakhNair · Accepted solution]

tinglyfox​

To Configure VMkernel vSwitch with vMotion enabled all hosts should be able to communicate each other hosts vMKernel Ports and vCenter.

To make this work with 10G throughput first upgrade your physical layer that can support 10G

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[tinglyfox]

Alright, so you're saying I cannot connect all 3 nodes directly without physical layer?

[daphnissov]

Yes, you need a switch.