Creating New vSphere Distributed Switch with LAGs and LACP

[ChrisKuhns]

Does anyone know of a good resource for building the virtual switch with LACP LAGs? I have never done this before and I am kind of at a loss. I have an 8-Node All Flash cluster I am trying to bring to life properly but they changed the configuration on it and told me I was required to change the configuration to LACP.

[admin]

Please refer to below resources:

1) LACP and ESXi‌‌‌

2) VMware KB 1004048‌‌

3) Create a vSphere Distributed Switch

3) LACP Support on a vSphere Distributed Switch‌

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Cheers!

-Shivam

[zdickinson]

Good morning, are the LAGs for the vSAN networking?  If so, I would go with traditional vSwitches for a cluster of 8 nodes.  We have found the complexity not to be worth it.  Thank you, Zach.

[ChrisKuhns]

Thanks for the response! It is for VSAN Networking. The Ready Nodes are already setup with LACP on the physical switch which is an HPE (Aruba) 5412R zl2. Would this be impacting it if they weren't configured on the VDS?

[admin]

Yes, there would be significant impact as you may face huge network packet drops which can cause unwanted issues. You should configure LACP on the VDS.

VMware Virtual SAN supports both VSS and VDS virtual switches. VDS is required for dynamic LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol), LBT (Load Based Teaming), LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol), bi-directional CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol), and Network IO Control (NIOC). Hence, VDS is preferred for superior performance operational visibility, and management capabilities. VMware recommends deploying VDS for use with VMware Virtual SAN.

Please refer to below resources:

VMware® Virtual SAN™ 6.2 Network Design Guide

Virtual SAN and Network IO Control‌

VSAN and Network IO Control / VDS part 2‌

_________________________

Was your question answered correctly? If so, please remember to mark your question as answered when you get the correct answer and award points to the person providing the answer. This helps others searching for a similar issue.

Cheers!

-Shivam

[ChrisKuhns]

I was just reading through the other items you linked me to before I responded. I thought the VDS was the "go to" for this. I already had it configured for the Ready Nodes, but Dell had the networking cards changed and the new setup required the LACP configuration.

[admin]

Ah ok, yes VDS is required if you are looking to configure LACP on vSphere side. You should configure LACP on the VDS by taking LACP config on the switch into consideration.

[MBrownWFP]

It is very important to ensure that LACP is configured consistently between VDS and physical switches.

Also, depending on configuration the switches may "lock" to LACP once LACP has been negotiated between VDS and physical switch. This can cause loss of host connectivity if you need to turn off LACP on the VMware side or reinstall ESXi (LACP is configured via vCenter so you can get into a "chicken and egg" situation) and the switch ports are configured to only respond to LACP traffic once the initial negotiation has been completed.

We do not manage the switching infrastructure in our datacenter locations. Rather than having to call the facility techs and have them modify port settings if LACP lock occurs we lit up secondary non-LACP management ports on our hosts to mitigate any connection loss related to LACP. I recommend maintaining at least one non-LACP management interface if possible.