vMotion traffic isolation with VDswitch best practive question (ESXi 5.1)

[TheKenApp]

I have a question regarding what is the best practice for vMotion traffic utilizing a VDswitch in vSphere 5.1.

Our  VDS is shared between two (soon to be 3) ESXi 5.1 hosts. They all have  twelve 1GB physical NIC ports. I have created 11 port groups as follows:

• VLAN trunking is utilized.
• Four  iSCSI port groups. They all physically lead to a switch that is  isolated from other switches in our infrastructure so we isolate all  iSCSI traffic. This is our VLAN 1060. These port groups each have a  dedicated physical NIC assigned to them.
• All other port groups are physically connected to the same switch.
• One port group is for Fault Tolerance, VLAN 1066.
• One port group is for vMotion, VLAN 1065.
• One port group is for Management, VLAN 1100.
• We  have four other port groups, each with their own VLAN ID. These are for  VMs that will reside on various VLANs within our infrastructure (VLAN  IDs 20, 30, 1100, 2003).
• All non-iSCSI port groups share the  same active uplinks within the Teaming and Failover settings of the port  group. Route is based on physical NIC load.
• We are using shares defined in the Network Resource Pool to prioritize traffic:
  NFS=50, Management=5, vMotion =10, vSphere SAN=50, vSphere  replication=50, iSCSI=50, VM=20, FT=10. I believe these are default  values of the network resource pool.

Here  is my question: Should we be isolating vMotion traffic by dedicating  physical NICs that are exclusively dedicated for vMotion, rather than  isolating via VLAN as I have described above? Will vMotion traffic  degrade performance in the way I have it configured above?

From  the various best practice white papers put out by VMware, I understand  that vMotion traffic should be isolated from other traffic. I have done  this by utilizing different VLANs for different traffic types. However, I  am wondering if vMotion traffic should be isolated by using NIC ports  dedicated exclusively for vMotion.

Any help with determining which design is best to use would be greatly appreciated.

[ep4p]

I think you configuration is right you use most of what you have and when you need it.

If you want to prioritize any traffic you can create resource allocation on the switch based on the type of traffic or defined by you based on your VLAN's.

--ep4p

[maishsk]

Welcome to the Forums.

In most environments, the vlan segregation will be sufficient. If you would like you could also make that a non-routable network.

[vSchu]

You could use multi-nic vmotion seeing you have plenty. Here is Duncan's article on how to do it.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/09/17/multiple-nic-vmotion-in-vsphere-5/

If you are not splitting up between multiple vswitches make sure you turn on NIOC(Network I/O Control) so network traffic is prioritized.