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kegwell
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Multiple VLANs on one vSwitch

I need a sanity check for my logic regarding VLANs. I'm not a networking person by any means, so please bear with me. I have an IBM BladeCenter with 4 Cisco 3012 switches, each of which correpsonds directly to a pNIC on a Blade server. In short, this means I have 4 pNICs per ESX server that are each connect to a dedicated Cisco 3012 switch.

pNIC1 --> pSwitch1

pNIC2 --> pSwitch2

pNIC3 --> pSwitch3

pNIC4 --> pSwitch4

The existing network environment has two VLANs, lets call then 5 and 10. My intent is to have two vSwitches which each have two pNICs assigned to them:

vSwitch1 --> pNIC1 & pNIC2

vSwitch2 --> pNIC3 & pNIC4

vSwitch2 will be used for Fault Tolerance and Vmotion, so we can focus entirely on vSwitch1. vSwitch1 will be used for LAN traffic and Service Console. Since we have two VLANs (5 & 10), it's my understanding that I should configure vSwitch1 as follows:

+ vSwitch1 --> pNIC1 & pNIC2

- Virtual Machine Port Group (VLAN 5)

- Virtual Machine Port Group (VLAN 10)

- Service Console Port

So, starting from the VM and working my way to the physical network, I believe it should go as follows:

+ Each VM will then have two vNICs. One vNIC will be assigned to 'Virtual machine Port Group (VLAN 5)' and the second vNIC will be assigned to 'Virtual Machine Port Group (VLAN 10)'.

+ These vNICs will be a port on vSwitch1, which are bound to pNIC1 & pNIC2

+ pNIC1 & pNIC2 have a dedicated connection to pSwitch1 and pSwitch2 (Cisco 3012)

+ pSwitch1 & pSwitch2 are connected to a core switch (Cisco 6500 series I believe) with the two VLANs already configured.

The part I am not certain of is the configuration of pSwitch1 & pSwitch2. My impression is VLAN trunking also needs to be setup on these switches?

Virtual Machine Port Group (VLAN5) --> pSwitch1 (VLAN 5 & 10) --> Core switch (VLAN 5)

Virtual Machine Port Group (VLAN 10) --> pSwitch2 (VLAN 10 & 5) --> Core switch (VLAN 10)

I believe I understand each segment of the configuration, but I am having a difficult time putting the whole picture together in simple terms. Thanks in advance.

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kegwell
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If somebody could reference a network diagram, that would be huge!

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jpdicicco
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

You need to have both VLAN 5 and VLAN 10 trunked between your physical switches. If the links are Cisco, you should just use ISL and either lock it down to your list of VLANs, or allow all VLANs to traverse the link.

JP

Happy virtualizing! JP Please consider awarding points to helpful or correct replies.
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