ESXi networking best practice

[Mig29Fulcrum]

Hi everyone, recently i had to add three VM's to our ESXi and I'm trying to build this the best possible way in regard to load balancing.

Initial configuration was same as on the screenshot except those 3 newly added VM's. So there were vSwitch0 - with Management network only and vSwitch1 - with actual VM's (hosts), and instead of adding those three VM's to vSwitch1 (where all other hosts are residing) i thought that i better add them to vSwitch0 to make load balancing "better".

There are total two physical network cards connected to the server, one for vSwitch0 and another for vSwitch1.

Is it a good idea guys to have VM's (hosts) on the same network card which is used to manage ESXi (management network)?

The thing is i inherited all of this (as most of us) and dont want to make it worse then it was and in the same time to build new according to the best practices.Thanks.

[a_p_]

Assuming that both NICs are connected to the same physical switch/network, I'd actually recommend that you reduce the virtual network to a single vSwitch with two uplinks (both active). This way the VMs will be distributed across the uplinks, and you will also be protected from a sinle uplink failure.

André

[dbalcaraz]

Hello,

As a.p.says, it would have more sense to build two uplinks in the vSwitch.

If you only have two physical adapters I will go for a unique vSwitch (active/active) and you will have more fault tolerance in the uplinks.

Best,

Dan