Force vSphere Replication to a Specific Network Adapter

[kevholland]

I currently use SRM 5 in a production capacity with our EMC RecoverPoint appliance, but want to start using vSphere Replication for mid-tier systems.  As I understand it, vSphere Replication uses the Management Network to transfer VMs from the protected site to the recovery site.  I have concerns about saturating the link between sites, so I want to use NIOC on a vDS.  My primary Management Network is on a vSS, but I want to create a secondary vmkernel port on a new vDS for vSphere Replication.  Is there a way to force this traffic to a specific vmkernel port if you have several?  How does ESXi know which one to use?

[adelisa]

hi welcome to community ,

hear the metri option will work if one not working for load balancing and priority you can assign metric number so that it will pass the data as per priority .

vlan create vif0 10 (create a vlan on interface vif0. The interface will be vifo-10)
vlan delete vif0 10 (deletes the vlan interface vif0-10)
ifconfig vif0-10 x.x.x.x  netmask x.x.x.x partner vif0-10 (Sets IP  information on the interface named vif0-10 with a partner interface of  vif0-10)
route add default 192.168.1.1 1 (Adds a default route of 192.168.1.1 with metric 1)

_______________________________
Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

[kevholland]

Thanks for your post, adelisa. I neglected to mention that I'm using ESXi 5, so I can't use the ifconfig or route commands on these servers, unless I'm missing something.

Just to make sure I’m describing this correctly, I’ve attached a picture to explain what I’m trying to accomplish.

I’m working with ESXi 5 and am trying to have two separate vmkernel ports on separate vSwitches, one on a vStanard Switch (vmk0) and another on a vDistributed Switch (vmk3) to take advantage of NIOC so I don’t saturate my WAN link. We don’t use QoS on our network switches.  Both Management Network interfaces will likely be on the same VLAN.  I want to pump the SRM vSphere Replication (Host Based Replication) traffic through the vmk3 on the vDS, not vmk0 on the vSS, but am unsure how to accomplish this.  Is this possible, or does the ESXi just pick a random vmk port to use?

[neilynz]

Hey ..we have doen something similar

At the protected site had a separate VMKernel for replication traffic.  This was on a separate VLAN to Management traffic.Added the following command on all hosts at the protected site

Esxcfg-route -a {target subnet IP} mask {subnet mask} {gateway IP}

eg

Esxcfg-route -a 10.10.10.0 mask 255.255.255.0 10.10.10.1

This forces all repliocation traffic outbound via the separate NIC. However at the other end all inbound NFC traffic from the VR server goes via the Managment NIC. There is no way to cahneg this with v1.0 although next realease may have ability to force to a dedicated nic at the recovery site

[JasonBurrell]

In 5.1 now you can choose one of the VMKernel ports for vSphere replication but only though the web client, the option is not available though the .Net client.

[smeilinger]

Even with the VMkernel port created through the Web Client I'm still seeing vSphere Replication running over my Mgmt NIC. Anybody else experiencing this after they configured this VMkernel port?

[admin]

This is wierd. We expect this to work. However, there might be a bug that we did not notice, if what you said is true.

How did you tell that Managmenet traffic still goes through the new interface you bind for replication traffic?

What is your network set up like?

Did anybody else ever get this to work?

[admin]

Can you also check if any error messsage in the VC Client, or on the host.

[smeilinger]

Ian - The replicaiton it working it's just that the VR traffic traverses the MGMT NIC instead of the VMKernel that was create in the Web Client. I currently have a ticket opened with VMware Support:13269122601 and waiting to hear back what they say.

[admin]

Reply 3 by Neilynz should work. It requries you to configure two VLANs, and use static routing to force the replication traffic to use one interface only.

You can give it a try.

The new 5.1 web client to bind a vmk nic for replication traffic is  an alternative solution. It is different from reply 3. Hopefully the service ticket will resolve your issue. We are not sure if you have detected a bug, or if it is a use error, at this point.

[kwerneburg]

The tagging for VR traffic on a PG in the UI doesn't actually enforce the routing yet though - you still need to manually add the route on the host.

That will likely be automated in the future, but for now it's more a visibility tag than a routing tag.