The importance of having vSwitch for all Guest os inside ESXi

[AlbertWT]

Hi All,

I wonder if there is a significant improvement in using vSwitch on my ESXi 3.5 u4, because at the moment my host got assigned an IP address and all of my guestOS also got the same IP address subnet without even using vSwitch feature.

can anyone justify it please ?

Thanks,

Kind Regards,

AWT

[Cooldude09]

You mean IP address of same subnet or same IP aadress...

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[AlbertWT]

OK, Anil

I've attached the current network diagramof my current implementation, should I use NAT inside the ESXi or any other idea please ?

Kind Regards,

AWT

[Dave_Mishchenko]

When you install ESXi it will automatically create a virtual machine port group in the same vSwitch as is created for the management (vmkernel) port. So with a default install any VMs you create will have network connectivity out the same NIC as you use to manage your host.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

What would you like to accomplish with your physical NIC ports. I.e. will you use iSCSI / NFS storage. Will have have DMZ VMs.

With a basic install you could have 2 NIC ports in a vSwitch that is used just for management and then 2 NIC ports in a vSwitch for just VM traffic.

PS - moved to the ESXi 3.5 forum.

[TomHowarth]

That is default behaviour, if you have not setup any portgroups or a second vSwitch and assigned VLANs or have VLAN seperated traffic entering the pNICs from the pSwitch, what do you expect. if you "just plug a Cisco switch in" it will just work switching all traffic with out separtation.

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author for the upcoming book "VMware Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment”.

[AlbertWT]

Yes Dave,

I'll start to use iSCSI SAN after I've done the initial deployment using the local storage.

I know that the iSCSI SAN should connect using the different Subnet on two of the pNIC and what I'm wondering is that if i shoulduse vSwitch between the VM inside the ESXi to improve performance while still allowing my clients to access the VM guest using Remote Desktop.

Kind Regards,

AWT

[Cooldude09]

the diagram looks perfectly fine, so do u mean there is no vswitch created...it is does, it is pretty fine, not sure why u looking for NAT.

Anil Gupta

Don’t fear changes, its constant in life, reduce your ecological footprint……………………..Go Green

if you found my answer to be useful, feel free to mark it as Helpful or Correct.

Looking for a Virtualization Solution, look here.....

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

The answer to that question depends on the number of physical NICs in your server. if you only have two pNICs then you will be confined to a single vSwitch and running multiple portgroups. have a read of Ken Clines blog series on vSwithcing tohelp out

part one is here

then have a read of Texiwill series on pNIC numbers and recommended configurations

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author for the upcoming book "VMware Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment”.

[AlbertWT]

Tom,

I've got 4 pNIC ports ready to use which is consists of:

2x Onboard Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit NIC (One connection for the Production access, One connection for SAN traffic).

1x 2 Ports Intel Pro1000 PTx 4 PCIe (V9.0) _TOE enabled NIC (One connection for the Production access, One connection for SAN traffic).

Kind Regards,

AWT

[AlbertWT]

Thanks to all who reply to my thread.

it is clear for me now that the use of vSwitch is depends on the amount of pNIC, as I currently have 2 NIC free for VM Traffic (out of 4 in total), i shall implement the following configuration from:http://kensvirtualreality.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/the-great-vswitch-debate-part-1/

Kind Regards,

AWT