Network requirements (NICs) for vSphere 6.x HA Cluster with FC SAN connectivity

[LMSADSA]

Hi

We are new to VMware, worked mainly with Microsoft HV. With HV we are using 4 NICs / networks in FC connected SAN environment (1st one for Management - which includes cluster IP & heartbeat, 2nd one for CSV - cluster shared volume traffic, 3rd for Live Migration of VMs and 4th one for VM traffic). We are not yet sure about number of NICs we need to configure with VMware (even after referring many articles). We use Cisco UCS blades (B200M4) with VIC 1340.

Looking for some guidance

Thanks in advance

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

If you're using Cisco UCS blades and are FC-attached, generally this is what is the most common approach with respect to pNICs (vmnics) and their layout:

• 2 x Management
• 2 x vMotion
• 2 x Virtual Machines

If you need additional services like fault tolerance then those would properly require additional ones.

[LMSADSA]

Thank You

All the vNICs are configured with failover feature with UCS, so single Mgmt, vMotion and VM are enough for each host, right?

[daphnissov]

That could also work, but I don't like to use the UCS failover feature. I prefer to let ESXi handle that.

[LMSADSA]

Hi

With Windows HV hosts UCS profile we are using UCS failover feature and for a long time it works fine. With vmware is there drawback in using the failover feature or it's not recommended to use with ESXi?

[SupreetK]

Maybe daphnissov​ was referring to this - Disable UCS VIC failover when you use Vmware | GeekSilver's Blog

Cheers,

Supreet

[LMSADSA]

We checked with CISCO support and they are saying we can use any of the two, so we decided to go with UCS level failover