Suggestions for Single vSphere Host networking

[clwoody]

Hi All.

Apologies if this has been covered before and actually the question is pretty straight forward but there are so many ways to answer my head is spinning with ideas!, really looking for some clarification.....:)

Set up is :

Remote Branch office

Single ESX4 Host using local storage

7 VM's (All Windows)

The Host will have 4 Physical NICs (2 Onboard & 2 PCI)

On the network side i will have 2 x Cisco 3750 switches.

My scenario i am looking for clarification on best practice to create a redundant network config.

I am thinking something like:

vswitch0 - mgmt network with 2 pNICs

vswitch1 - VM traffic network with 2 pNICs

what i am clueless about is how t approach vlans if at all necessary? should i assign vlan tags at the port group level?

additionally, i will have one windows host running Commvault VSA for VM backups. I am not certain about how this should connect, the same vlan as SC?

I hope this is enough information.

Thanks in advance.

[MarkStrong]

I would do it this way:

vSwitch0: vmnic0 (onboard NIC1, connected to Cisco3750_switch_1) + vmnic2 (add-on NIC port1, connected to Cisco3750_switch_2)

SC + VMKernel. Switch ports configured as acess ports.

SC and VMKernel are on the same VLAN.

Load ballancing: Explicit failover order

SC is active on vnnic0, vmnic1 is configured as stand-by

VMKernel is active on vnnic1, vmnic0 is configured as stand-by

vSwitch1: vmnic1 (onboard NIC2, connected to Cisco3750_switch_1) + vmnic3 (add-on NIC port2, connected to Cisco3750_switch_2)

Switch ports configured as trunk ports.

Port groups for each VLAN.

[athlon_crazy]

VST or EST both are okay. But tag on port group is necessary to isolate the network or to have multiple port group with multiple vlan when you choose VST over EST.

You can add two vmnic for commvault VSA, one for mgmt network and one for VM network. I don't have any experience with CommVault, so I'm not sure whether VSA will use SC resources or not during VM backup. If it's do, you may need to think about the SC load as well during backup Window.

[MarkStrong]

Sorry, I hve just read your post again and would like to add some notes to my earlier reply:

1) You have only one host and local storage and hence you will no be configuring cluster and iSCSI storage - no need for VMKernel.

2) Two options really - keep SC running on two pNICs for redundancy or configure it on one pNIC and then add third pNIC to vSwitch1

3) Third option - Create one vSwitch with four pNICs, configure all VLANs on all trunk switch ports, configure port groups for different production VLANs and configure SC to run a specific VLAN.

I hope it is not very confusing.

[clwoody]

Hello Mark & Athlon,

Thanks for your replies...much appreciated. I would say you have confirmed what i was thinking so that's nice to hear.

You are correct local storage, so no vmkernel ports.

Thanks again!

Colin