NIC Teaming

[teksup88]

Hi All

I didn't see this in the forum and it is not clear from my Lowe book.

If I setup NIC teaming in vmsrv does each NIC card on my server need a separate IP address?

For example if four NICs are a team does each have an IP address or do they share one?

If I have 32 NICs on a server will I need enough IP addresses in my subnet for each to have an IP address if they're all used for vm activity?

Thanks in advance

[a_p_]

It depends on what the NICs are used for. You only need IP addresses on the host side for VMKernel port groups (Management, vMotion, ...), not for the uplinks themselves. Uplinks used for virtual machine traffic don't need an IP address, as the IP address is set on each individual virtual machine.

André

[teksup88]

So say my server has 32 NICs.

It has a ESXi 5.1 host

If I had 4 vms each using 8 NICs via teaming only 4 IP addresses would be needed? For the 4 vms?

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

Regarding virtual machine networks only, that's correct.

I assume you are talking about teaming the uplinks/vmnics!? Please keep in mind that LACP (link aggregation) is only supported with vSphere 5.1 and vDS (or Nexus 1k). It's possible to configure EtherChannel for standard vSwitches, but options there are limited (see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1004048)

André

[teksup88]

thanks a bunch great info