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JasonNash
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vSAN Network Recommendations

Looking for recommendations around networking best practices for our vSAN network.

A 5 host all flash NVMe cluster with 2 x Mellanox SN2010 (Onyx) dedicated to vSAN traffic, each host has 2 x 25GbE uplinks. How do we best configure the switch topology for performance and redundancy; I am considering the below options.

  1. Single vSAN VMkernel with a link to each switch in an active/standby config (all active to one switch all standby to the other), with dual 100GbE links between the two switches.
  2. Two vSAN VMkernel adapters with two seperate subnets/networks (one on each switch) keeping the switches standalone. In this config how does traffic flow work, which route is used?
  3. MLAG is another option but unless someone can think of a good reason to do this I would rather not have the added complexity of this config.

Let me know your thoughts around this or other possible configs.

Thanks all!

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a_p_
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If bandwidth is sufficient with one active uplink (25GbE), then I'd opt to option 1 (Active/Active, or if you want Active/Standby).

Option 2 may work too, but in this case you should have 2 vmnics per VMKernel port group for best redundancy.

Unless already read, take a look at https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/vmware-vsan/vmware-r-vsan-tm-network-design/ (NIC Teaming on the vSAN network) which explains the different concepts in detail, and alos lists the pros, and cons for each of them.


André

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a_p_
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If bandwidth is sufficient with one active uplink (25GbE), then I'd opt to option 1 (Active/Active, or if you want Active/Standby).

Option 2 may work too, but in this case you should have 2 vmnics per VMKernel port group for best redundancy.

Unless already read, take a look at https://storagehub.vmware.com/t/vmware-vsan/vmware-r-vsan-tm-network-design/ (NIC Teaming on the vSAN network) which explains the different concepts in detail, and alos lists the pros, and cons for each of them.


André

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jforbesTX
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I am looking at the Mellanox SN2010 for use in our new 5 node cluster, and was wondering if you could give me an update on your experience?

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