VMWare IP Hash + Unused Ports

[bigdogchris]

I have a virtual switch that has 4 uplinks, 2 are 1Gb and 2 are 10Gb. All 4 ports are marked as active in the default vSwitch nic teaming tab. The 1Gb ports are used strictly for VMware management networking and VMotion.

I want to create a VM port group and use the 2 10Gb in IP Hash load balancing due to the nature of the server (1 server communicating to upwards of 128 simultaneous IP's). The physical switch side is configured. I created the port group and marked the 1Gb links as unused. However, I am reading that IP Hash port groups do not support marking a port as standbye or unused. VMWare only shows this as an invalid configuration if a 1Gb uplink is set in standbye, when unused it does not error out.

Do I have to create 2 separate virtual switches per server so the 10Gb links have their own switch?

 

[KapsZ28]

"You must set all uplinks from the team in the Active failover list . The Standby and Unused lists must be empty."

So, yes create another vSwitch. Only takes 2 seconds.

When you say the physical switch is configured, I am assuming that means you setup LAG?

 

[bigdogchris]

"You must set all uplinks from the team in the Active failover list . The Standby and Unused lists must be empty."

So, yes create another vSwitch. Only takes 2 seconds.

When you say the physical switch is configured, I am assuming that means you setup LAG?

Yes. But if I do this (create 2 switches) won't I have to assign 2 network adapters to every VM? One for the VMotion network and the other for the production or will just having the management/vmotion network attached to each server be enough?

Additional reading found here "ALL devices connected to a vSwitch configured with IP Hash load balancing must use IP Hash load balancing" also makes it sound like I will have to add a second switch. My hope of having both the IP Hashed lag group and the standard connections in the same switch will not work.

 

[Syran]

Typically, unless the Vswitches are for the purpose of hypervisior events (vmotion, iscsi, etc), you will need to assign a vnic to the switch you want to work through, as well as subnetting things off so you don't cause some major network confusion. That said, from the sound of it, you should reverse your process. Leave the 10Gb nics on the primary vswitch handling the network load, and create a new switch for the management/hypervisior activities, and move the 1Gb nics to that one instead. Shouldn't have to mess with the VMs that way, only maybe dealing a bit with HA/etc and getting that reconfigured on a different vlan.

 

[bigdogchris]

Typically, unless the Vswitches are for the purpose of hypervisior events (vmotion, iscsi, etc), you will need to assign a vnic to the switch you want to work through, as well as subnetting things off so you don't cause some major network confusion. That said, from the sound of it, you should reverse your process. Leave the 10Gb nics on the primary vswitch handling the network load, and create a new switch for the management/hypervisior activities, and move the 1Gb nics to that one instead. Shouldn't have to mess with the VMs that way, only maybe dealing a bit with HA/etc and getting that reconfigured on a different vlan.

I ended up creating 2 vmotion networks on the first switch, rotating active/standby 1Gb nics, and created a second switch for the 10Gb IP nics.