Proper NIC allocation

[lostvm]

I am laying out a VMware environment with the following setup.

6xPowerEdge 2950s 32GB memory, 2xQuad Core 2.66GHz, 6x36GB 15k RAID 10

All of these servers connect to a Dell/EMC CX3-10 with redundant fiber HBAs, 30x146GB 15k drives and 30x500GB SATA drives.

It has been a while sense I have installed VMware ESX freshly and I am wondering what the proper NIC allocation is? Should it be 1 NIC for the Physical ESX server, 1 for Vmotion and however many else for your virtual machines. Or is it 2 NICs for Physical, 2 or VMotion and how ever many else you want for your virtual machines?

Cheers,

LV

[MR-T]

It depends how many NICs you have available and if you're planning to connect into multiple VLANs.

Normally I'd opt for the following.

2 x Service Console

1 x VMotion

2 x Production virtual machine network

If you can't use VLAN tagging, you might need to dedicate certain NICs to specific VLANs.

[Paul_B1]

Here's what we do..

2xService Console (active/passive)

2xVM's Trunked

1xDMZ

1x"Services", NFS, VMotion, VM Backups

[crazex]

Right now, I've got:

1 - SC/NFS

2 - VM Traffic

1 - Vmotion(separate network)

I'd prefer to have 2 for the SC/NFS, but I only had 4 pNICs.

-Jon-

[Rob_Bohmann1]

If you are going to use HA, then I would definitely have 2 nics for the service console, otherwise you can get away with one.

Generally for most environments we use something like this:

SC-1 or 2(HA)

VMnet - if one segment (2 nics teamed), multiple segments then 1 nic each

VMotion 1 nic (or if sc has 2 nics, then we use the sc network for Vmotion)

Ban -1

How often has a nic failed in your environment? How solid is the backend network infrastructure? What are the impacts if a nic for a particular host fails?

(e.g., Client facing DMZ vs. internal development?) Those answers help us determine how to set up our networking.

[esiebert7625]

NIC's are cheap, get as many as you can, I'd put at least 4 in a server that supports up to 12 VM's and 6 in a server supports more than 12. You can but 4-port NIC cards that only take up one slot, just make sure you have more then one physical NIC card in case it fails you will have a backup if you configure your vswitches with 2 NIC's and use VLAN tagging. Always use one for vMotion, you can use 2 for the Service Console and share them with VM's and use 2 NIC's for each vSwitch for load balancing/failover and use 802.1Q VLAN tagging if your switch supports it.

Here's some guide Network links....

VMware ESX Server 3 802.1Q VLAN Solutions - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx3_vlan_wp.pdf

Networking Virtual Machines - http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/TAC9689-A.pdf

Networking Scenarios & Troubleshooting - http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/tac9689-b.pdf

Second Service Console NIC - http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=536518&#536518

NIC teaming and VLAN trunking - http://blog.scottlowe.org/2006/12/04/esx-server-nic-teaming-and-vlan-trunking/

fyi..if you find any of these posts helpful, please award points by clicking the Helpful/Correct buttons.....thanks

[sizarraga]

You can use 1 for Service Console or 2 if you want HA.

2NICs in Teaming for VMs (if you want HA in SC and you don't have many NICs you can share VMs NICs with SC

And 1 NIC for VMkernel (VMotion, NFS, etc)

This configuration is only for Basic operations.

If you have diferent VLANs in your Network, then you have to add more NICs for each VLAN (2 for HA or 1 if you don't need HA)

[Ken_Cline]

If you can do six pNICs, then I'd suggest the setup shown in the attached pic...if you use the default load-balancing approach (vSwitch port based), then COS and VMotion will use different pNICs except during failure events when they will share one.

[stexlollo]

hello Ken i read your suggestion with 6pnic on a host.that i will have.

i have a configuration with 2pswith (hp 2848), 2 host (hp dl385 g2 with 2+ 4 nic) esx standard and an iscsi sun with 2 controller and 3 port 1 gbit for controller.The sun doesn't support vlan tagging, but VLAN and MPIO load balncing (eql p100e), the productor suggest to create a phisical VLAN with 2 pswitch, for iscsi traffic with jumbo frame and flaw control enabl.

i think cos and vmotion in a vswitch is a good idea form my situation, now i do not have vmotion and HA but in the future sure ....so i think i have 2 pnic for cos (active,passive i think?),if a failur port occurs.the vswitch must be in the same subnet of VMs productions one, if i have only one phisical VLAN production in 2 pswitch?

i think VMs network is ok with 2 pnic for host and i have only 1 phisical VLAN for VMs in 2 switch.

from iscsi vlan view with esx iniziator and other 2 pnic, how i must set a vswitch with 2 vnic for iscsi traffic?(1 for internel network and 1 for vmkernel iscsi console or 2 for vmkernel console iscsi?).

There i have dubt.thanks

[Monoman]

We just got five 2950s. Each server has 10 NIC ports. 2 on board NICs and two 4 port NICs.

The plan so far is:

\* Console & VMotion share 2 NICs

\* Production VLANs that are firewalled share at least 2 NICs

\* Production internal VLANs share 2 NICs

\* Network for backups - 1 NIC

\* remaining NICs reserved for future use

Definitely load it up now. We learned the hard way. Added a 4 port NIC and when we booted ESX up it decided to change all the NIC assignments. Not fun.