Using noic with iscsi

[kgottleib]

Need to validate whether using noic for a config where vmotion and iscsi share the same vmnics. 

MY idea idea is to configure a single vDS with 2 vmk connections for iscsi, 1 with vmnic2 active and vmnic3 unused, the other vmk would be configured inversely with vmnic3 as active and vmnic2 as unused. 

NOw now for vmotion I would create a multi-NIC config where vmnic2 is active and vmnic 3 is unused and again the 2nd vmotion vmk would be configured inversely where vmnic3 is active and vmnic2 is unused.

vmotion networks would be configured w less priority than iscsi networks so as not to interrupt storage traffic

Concerns:

in iscsi multi pathing all other vmnics in the vDS other than the active vmnic must be unused when using binding, is this also the case for multimic vmotion or is having the other vmnics in the standby mode ok?  Which is the preferred method? 

is the above config officially suppotted?

will noic slow down performance of iscsi networking in any way? 

thanks in advance

[vfk]

Hi,

Generally I would not mix vmotion and storage as both have high bandwidth requirement, unless you are limited on vmnics.  What is the speed of your uplinks 1gbe or 10gbe?

Have you seen vDS best practise series on VMware blog website. VDS Best Practices - Rack Server Deployment with Two 10 Gigabit adapters (Part 4 of 6) | VMware vSph...This is really gets into different design consideration for vDS, rack server, blades, 1gbe, 10gbe uplink....LBT and NOIC and so on....really good read...check it out.

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

in iscsi multi pathing all other vmnics in the vDS other than the active vmnic must be unused when using binding, is this also the case for multimic vmotion or is having the other vmnics in the standby mode ok?  Which is the preferred method?

Contrary to the iSCSI use case, for Multi-NIC vMotion the inactive NICs should be configured as standby and not as unused.

See VMware KB: Multiple-NIC vMotion in vSphere 5

is the above config officially suppotted?

Yes.

will noic slow down performance of iscsi networking in any way?

That obviously depends on how you actually configure NIOC and how the actual iSCSI bandwidth consumption and available bandwidth are. Usually you would not set any NIOC bandwidth limits on iSCSI traffic and assign a higher priority to it as well.

Also you might want to consider using Traffic-Shaping on the vMotion port group, see these articles:

Testing vSphere NIOC Host Limits on Multi-NIC vMotion Traffic | Wahl Network

Leveraging Traffic Shaping to Control Multi-NIC vMotion Bandwidth | Wahl Network

[Texiwill]

Hello,

In general most people bond vMotion with the management network than they do with Storage. once more using separate VLANs for each. If you can ensure storage gets more network than vMotion then go for it. Specifically during storage vMotions.

Best regards,
Edward L. Haletky
VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, 2010, 2011,2012,2013,2014

Author of the books 'VMWare ESX and ESXi in the Enterprise: Planning Deployment Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. 'VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment', Copyright 2009 Pearson Education.

Virtualization and Cloud Security Analyst: The Virtualization Practice, LLC -- vSphere Upgrade Saga -- Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast