usernamewoj
Contributor
Contributor

4 NICs to 2 physical switch

Hi,
I am in the process of preparing a high-availability ESXi cluster. I want to get the best network redundancy and increase networkbandwith.

I still have devices to connect: 2x HP DL server, 2x Cisco Catalyst.
My subnets: SRV, MGMT, HeartBeat. I also have a dedicated vMotion subnet, but I already have it thought out and planned.

I have 4 free ethernet ports on each server. I thought that 2 cables would go from each server to each switch and connect it in EtherChannel. All my needed vlans (SRV, MGMT, HeartBeat) would flow through this channel. Is it good idea? If not, what's the best way to do it? Below is an excerpt from the diagram.

usernamewoj_0-1690036352057.png

 

 

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Sachchidanand
Expert
Expert

It will be better if the switch is also in Stack/Cluster mode, then connect two ports to each switch and create one EtherChannel. In this case you will get better redundancy and high bandwidth/throughput. 

Regards,

Sachchidanand

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usernamewoj
Contributor
Contributor

Hello, thanks for the reply. I understand that without connecting the switches in a cluster/stack it will also work?

I still have a configuration question. On the esxi side, I just add all my vNICs as active, select the appropriate load balancing mode and assign to vSwitch? Etherchannel is configure on physical switches?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

How are the ESXi hosts licensed, i.e. do you have Enterprise Plus licensing?
Without Distributed virtual Switches (included in Ent+) your configuration options regarding channeling are limited.

André

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usernamewoj
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I have vSphere Essentials Plus and vCenter Essentials.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

In this case I'd recommend that you stay with the default network Failover&Teaming settings.
With these settings, you can plugin the vmnics (ESXi uplinks) on different switches, without the need to worry about stacking, spanning-tree, etc.

André

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usernamewoj
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,
can I connect 2 cables to each switch in the case you describe and trunk all the necessary vlans through them?

P.S. I don't need vDS for etherchannel?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Since you are talking about Cisco switches, where "trunk" stands for 802.1Q tagged traffic, the answer is yes, you can, as long as the vmnics on a given vSwitch are connected to physical switch ports, which allow the same VLANs.

With the default settings, a VM's virtual network adapter will be assigned to one of the vmnics when the VM is powered on.
This assignment happens in a round-robin manner, so that your VMs will be distributed across the different vmnics.

Hint: Please note that in case you have the native VLAN (VLAN 1 by default) in use on your network - which I do not recommend -  the virtual port group for that VLAN must not be tagged (no VLAN-ID set).

André

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usernamewoj
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

you only mention VM NICs here. What about the management subnet and heartbeat? As I wrote earlier, 2 cables will be connected to each switch from each server. On each cable passed SRV, MGMT, HeartBeat.

What do you recommend to choose - EtherChannel or default teaming settings? I want to get the best redundancy and throughput. STP on switches will have to be configured anyway due to the remaining fragment of the infrastructure.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

It's basically the same for VMkernel port groups, I just didn't mention them explicitly.

With Ess+ licensing, stay with default teaming. Make sure that all vmnics on the vSwitches/port groups are "Active", so that all the uplinks will be used. As mentioned before, to achieve higher throughput through link aggregation, you need Ent+ license.

André

 

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usernamewoj
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Contributor

Thanks for help!

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