simple question about networking best practice - traffic separation for storage

[meddle2010]

Excuse the newbie question...

I am reading up on best practices for network separation for VMware.  I see that often things are set up like this (I got this from another post here that was deemed acceptable for best practice type config):

vSwitch0

Service Console - vmnic0 Active - vmnic3 Standby

VMkernel - vmnic3 Active - vmnic0 Standby

vSwitch1

VM Port Groups - vmnic1 and vmnic2 Active

(Multiple trunked VLANs)

What about storage traffic.  I've worked with other hypervisors where storage is often broken out.   For iSCSI or NFS storage, would you create another vSwitch2, with it's own NICs to be used primarily for the storage network?

Thanks

[vmroyale]

For iSCSI or NFS storage, would you create another vSwitch2, with it's own NICs to be used primarily for the storage network?

If at all possible, I always do this. Isolation is a good thing for storage networks.

[meddle2010]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I quite often do not see this called out - in those cases, through which network would people be routing it - VMnetwork?

[vmroyale]

It would depend, but I have seen storage networks on the same networks as the VMs/physical servers - especially in environments where the storage system is also accessed by non-VM clients.

[meddle2010]

thanks

[logiboy123]

It really depends on the equipment you have, the network design and the design goals.

Typically it is a good idea to separate out storage traffic. If you are using two 10GbE uplinks per host then obviously that won't be possible.

Check out my blog for some design ideas.

vrif.blogspot.com

Regards,

Paul

[Josh26]

I think you managed to find the only post on this forum that doesn't recommend storage networks on adedicated vSwitch before considering a "best practice".

The service console hasn't existed for a long time so whatever you're looking at it obviously quite an old recommendation. It "kind of" dedicates vmnic3 to storage so it's more separated than it looks initially.

I know I've built FC storage networks where, for obvious reasons, dedicating a NIC to storage didn't make any sense at all, and at least four people reviewed the project and called me out on it. Dedicated NICs are generally well sought after.

[chriswahl]

I hesitate to ever use the term "best practice" as things highly depend on the situation. That said, there are definitely some documented ways to do things that make more sense than others.

Here is a post I wrote on how to configure lab networks that can easily apply to any network. It covers a 2-NIC and 4-NIC layout, which are rather common in today's world of 10 GbE or a pair of dual port 1 GbE cards. If you have more NICs than 4 you can just further divide out the non-storage traffic.

http://wahlnetwork.com/2012/07/16/efficient-virtual-networking-designs-for-vsphere-home-lab-servers/

Hope this helps.