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jhamrick
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Newbie needing help with VMotion

I need a little help understanding the network setup for VMotion. Please pardon my ignorance. From what I have seen, I need to set up a VMKernel Port.

  • For the VLAN settting, my options are no VLAN or VLAN 0. I am not sure if this matters or not. Does it?

  • It is also asking for an IP address. If my service console is 10.1.3.203, can I use the same subnet for the VMKernel Port?

  • My server currently has 2 NICs. Currently, the 2 NICs are assigned to VSwitch0. The Service Console and VMNetwork (the network that the VM's use) are in that VSwitch0. Right now if I add the VMKernel Port, it will also be on the same switch. Is this setup OK? I am asking because I have seen some recommendations that state the VMKernel should be on a separate physical NIC. What is the best practice?

  • What guide/document would give me the details/best practices on this subject?

Thanks for your time - it is greatly appreciated.

-Newbie

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Dave_Mishchenko
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For the VLAN settting, my options are no VLAN or VLAN 0. I am not sure if this matters or not. Does it?

VLAN 0 is the same as no VLAN so you'll be OK there. You might want to consider a VLAN if security is a concern as the contents of memory are transfered in an unencrypted method with vmotion.

>It is also asking for an IP address. If my service console is 10.1.3.203, can I use the same subnet for the VMKernel Port?

It has to be a unique IP address. It can be a different subnet / VLAN if you want. You'll just want both vmkernel port IPs on the same subnet for both hosts. You can test vmkernel conectivity with the command vmkping

My server currently has 2 NICs. Currently, the 2 NICs are assigned to VSwitch0. The Service Console and VMNetwork (the network that the VM's use) are in that VSwitch0. Right now if I add the VMKernel Port, it will also be on the same switch. Is this setup OK? I am asking because I have seen some recommendations that state the VMKernel should be on a separate physical NIC. What is the best practice?

What guide/document would give me the details/best practices on this subject?

If you don't have the option to add a NIC then you could stay with this or create two vswitches - one for the SC / vmotion and the other for VMs. Ideally you could add another 2 NIC ports and then create 2 vswitches (one for the SC / vmkernel and another for VMs). The if you have 2 - dual port NICs, the vswitch would include one port from each NIC.

Here's a good site with lots of links for further reading: http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Links.html#Networking

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jhamrick
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Forgot to mention ESX 3.0.2 with VC 2.0.2.

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MR-T
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You'll need to remove one of the NICS from vswitch0 and then create a new 'VMKernel' swtich (vswitch1) using that NIC.

It's best practice to have a seperate subnet for VMotion, but it will work on the same network as the service console.

You'll need to assign each vmotion switch with a unique IP address and ensure you enable the switch for VMotion.

Finally, you need to make sure both servers can see the same storage (presented using the same LUN ID's).

Good Luck

Dave_Mishchenko
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For the VLAN settting, my options are no VLAN or VLAN 0. I am not sure if this matters or not. Does it?

VLAN 0 is the same as no VLAN so you'll be OK there. You might want to consider a VLAN if security is a concern as the contents of memory are transfered in an unencrypted method with vmotion.

>It is also asking for an IP address. If my service console is 10.1.3.203, can I use the same subnet for the VMKernel Port?

It has to be a unique IP address. It can be a different subnet / VLAN if you want. You'll just want both vmkernel port IPs on the same subnet for both hosts. You can test vmkernel conectivity with the command vmkping

My server currently has 2 NICs. Currently, the 2 NICs are assigned to VSwitch0. The Service Console and VMNetwork (the network that the VM's use) are in that VSwitch0. Right now if I add the VMKernel Port, it will also be on the same switch. Is this setup OK? I am asking because I have seen some recommendations that state the VMKernel should be on a separate physical NIC. What is the best practice?

What guide/document would give me the details/best practices on this subject?

If you don't have the option to add a NIC then you could stay with this or create two vswitches - one for the SC / vmotion and the other for VMs. Ideally you could add another 2 NIC ports and then create 2 vswitches (one for the SC / vmkernel and another for VMs). The if you have 2 - dual port NICs, the vswitch would include one port from each NIC.

Here's a good site with lots of links for further reading: http://www.vmware-land.com/Vmware_Links.html#Networking

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