Networking configuration for ESX or ESXi Part 5

Fifth part of the vSphere networking series is for 4 x 10Gbps network adapters – 2 x dual port NICs.

Network traffic types:

1. mgmt – VLANID  10
2. vMotion – vLANID 20
3. VM network – vLANID 30
4. storage iSCSI – vLANID 40
5. FT (fault tolerance) – Vlanid 50

Scenario #1 – 4  x 10Gbps – vSphere 4.X and vSphere 5.X – static configuration – rack mounted servers

4×10 GbE static configuration

Above scenario is for use case where Enterprise + license is not available. There are tow dual port cards vmnic0 and vmnic1 on boards card and vmnic1 and vmnic2 additional card in PCI-express. In design there is a single standards virtual switch vSwitch0 with all progroups needed. Each portgroup utilize different physical NICs  while other NICs are in standby mode (see table below for more details).

Scenario #2– 4  x 10Gbps – vSphere 4.X and vSphere 5.X – dynamic configuration – rack mounted servers

Scenario number two utilize vDS (virtual distributed switches), NOIC – Network IO Control and LBT (Load Based Teaming) policy. There are tow dual port cards vmnic0 and vmnic1 on boards card and vmnic1 and vmnic2 additional card in PCI-express. All netork cards are in one vDS0 switch, all are active across all portgroups. To control traffic NIOC is enables using shares to prioritize among different type of traffics (See table below for more details)

4x10GbE dynamic configuration

Few tips at the end.

1. If you go for 10Gbps use vSphere Enterprise + license
2. Use virtual distributed switches and enable NIOC
3. With vSphere 4 and vSphere 5 make sure your DB is well protected (lost of vCenter DB and further DB recreation will cause outage on all virtual networks

[box type=”info”] See links below for different networking configuration

ESX and ESXi networking configuration for 4 NICs on standard and distributed switches

ESX and ESXi networking configuration for 6 NICs on standard and distributed switches

ESX and ESXi networking configuration for 10 NICs on standard and distibuted switches

ESX and ESXi networking configuration for 4 x10 Gbps NICs on standard and distributed switches

ESX and ESXi networking configuration for 2 x 10 Gbps NICs on standard and distributed switches[/box]