pNIC setup for redundant links

[mcdouglas]

Hi,

I have an ESX host with two pNIC installed. I'd like to connect my host to two separate switches. If I remember correctly i have to use the default settings (route based on port number). I have added the 2 pNICs to my vSwitch. However i'm not sure how should I configure them. Should I put the two pNIC in active adapter group, or should I put one of them in the standby group? What is the difference between the 2 options?

Thank you.

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

Use active group... so some VM will use une NIC, some the other.

A standby NIC instead will not used, until the other NICs works fine.

Andre

[mcdouglas]

In that case what's the point of an active-standby configuration? If an active-active provides not just redundancy but increased BW, then why would anyone use it?

[a2alpha]

If you had a slower switch or slower network that would work in the event of failure of the other one but isn't your preferred or optimal one, then setting the pNIC adaptor that plugs into it as standby would be useful as you wouldn't want any of your virtual machines to use it unless they had to.

[AndreTheGiant]

In that case what's the point of an active-standby configuration?

There is also another use of this configuration, NOT at vSwitch level but at each port group (of the same vSwitch) level.

Is a simple way (for example) to fix the VMotion portgroup to a NIC and SC portgroup to another different NIC.

Andre