As I have blogged about before, Cisco has very nice Solution Reference Network Designs (SRND) for many common (and some not so common) network designs. These are superb best practice guidelines when developing complex network solutions.

However, Cisco's SRND for VMware integration - Integrating Virtual Machines into the Cisco Data Center Architecture - is very weak when it comes to network design. The SRND is 28 pages long and the first 23 pages is a very well done overview of VMware and VMware networking. However, the actual Cisco (physical) network integration design is only 4 pages long. It consists of two diagrams and some notes about general network issues.

There are two configuration snippets, but those are only how to configure a host port or a dot1q trunk to the ESX server (not very complex). I would expect a lot more from Cisco on best practices for VMware networking. Cisco is pushing its own use of VMware and should have detailed experience with VMware network designs. Cisco needs to be a leader in all parts of networking, not just its own gear.

As a note, I've also read the "networking" whitepapers on VMware's site. The VMware Virtual Networking Concepts paper is a very nice overview of VMware networking, but does not get into detailed design or configuration examples. The remaining "networking" whitepapers are....well....written by server guys. I think VMware could use a really strong network engineer on their development teams to create actual reference designs for certain physical server setups and accompanying network switches.

There is a big window for innovation and improvement from both companies on this topic.