The Blue Gears blogs have been moved to http://www.astroarch.com/blog. Look for more network topology blogs at this new location.
Virtualization hosts with only 6 pNICs who want to include a DMZ as well as all the other networks present less of a challenge to the administrator than those with lesser pNICs. In these 6 pNICs the following different networks would exist DMZ, VMotion, Storage, and a regular VM Network. Read more
Virtualization hosts with only 5 pNICs who want to include a DMZ as well as all the other networks present a challenge to the administrator. In these 5 pNICs the following different networks would exist DMZ, VMotion, Storage, and a regular VM Network. This is NOT recommended with only 5 pNICs as redundancy suffers greatly as does security. Read more
Virtualization hosts with only 4 pNICs who want to include a DMZ as well as all the other networks present a challenge to the administrator. In these 4 pNICs the following different networks would exist DMZ, VMotion, Storage, and a regular VM Network. This is NOT recommended with only 4 pNICs as redundancy suffers greatly as does security. Read more
Virtualization hosts with only 3 pNICs present a challenge to the administrator. In these 3 pNICs some administrators wish to add a DMZ to the network mix of management, VMotion, Storage, and a regular VM Network. This is NOT recommended with only 3 pNICs as redundancy suffers greatly as does issues with performance. Read more
Virtualization hosts running on commodity boxes presents a challenge for the administrator. Namely in the number of available physical NICs available for use. Often there are only two NICs available.
In these 2 pNICs some administrators wish to add a DMZ to the network mix of management, VMotion, Storage, and a regular VM Network. This is NOT recommended with only 2 pNICs.
How to setup virtual networking in this situation is a challenge of trade-offs between performance, redundancy, and security.
The best way to use these pNICs is as follows: Read more
Virtualization running on hosts with only 2 on-board pNICs and 6 pNIC in a slot have the fewest security, redundancy, and performance challenges than other topologies. Administrators are not forced to make any major choice on which security zones to combine upon a pair of pNICs.
How to setup virtual networking when 8 pNICs are involved follows:
pNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console) Read more
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
pNIC2 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC3 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC4 -> vSwitch2 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
Virtualization running on hosts with only 2 on-board pNICs and 4 pNIC in a slot have less security, redundancy, and performance challenges than other topologies. Administrators are forced to make only one major choice on which security zones to combine upon a pair of pNICs. Yet, the combination of service console/management appliance with VMotion is an accepted practice for 6 pNICs when an IP storage network is involved.
How to setup virtual networking when 6 pNICs are involved follows:
Read more
pNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
Virtualization running on hosts with only 2 on-board pNICs and 3 pNIC in a slot have security, redundancy, and performance challenges. Administrators are forced to make choices on how much redundancy is required and where to place it.
How to setup virtual networking when 5 pNICs are involved follows:
Read more
pNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC2 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC3 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
pNIC4 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
Virtualization running on hosts with only 2 on-board pNICs and 2 pNIC in a slot have security, redundancy, and performance challenges. Administrators are forced to make choices on how much redundancy is required and where to place it.
How to setup virtual networking when 4 pNICs are involved follows:
Read more
pNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
................. -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC2 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
pNIC3 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
Virtualization running on hosts with only 2 on-board pNICs and 1 pNIC in a slot have security, redundancy, and performance challenges. Administrators are forced to make choices on how much redundancy is required and where to place it.
How to setup virtual networking when 3 pNICs are involved follows:
Read morepNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
..................-> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC2 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
Virtualization hosts running on commodity boxes presents a challenge for the administrator. Namely in the number of available physical NICs available for use. Often there are only two NICs available.
How to setup virtual networking in this situation is a challenge of trade-offs between performance, redundancy, and security.
The best way to use these pNICs is as follows: Read more
pNIC0 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
..................-> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
..................-> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
An often discussed VMware ESX issue is how to combine the various networks within the virtual infrastructure or even if they should be combined on the same vSwitch.
Combining networks should only be done if you are low on network ports. The common rule is to have at least 2 physical NICs per network and that these NICs need to connected to difference physical switches. Yet, they are connected to the same virtual switch. Read more
Power outage lead to VMware HA toggling on and off repetitively and prevented proper booting of DNS, and other crucial VMs. Redundancy is required to survive such events.
My office, is not as redundant as I would want. Mainly because of lack of funds. Within my book I claim you should always have redundant networks, however on this cluster, we have just enough ports to support the networks required. This was a conscious decision based on the cost of more ports. Read more
A common question on the VMware Communities Forums is what is the best way to attach NAS or iSCSI storage to the virtual infrastructure. In the blog Blue Gears - Virtual Networking I mentioned that there are several networks and that there exists a Storage network. Read more
This is the first of a series of Blue Gears blogs on virtual networking written by Edward L. Haletky aka Texiwill on the VMware Communities Forums who specializes in Virtualization Security, Networking, and programming. Read more
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Virtualization expert Edward L. Haletky is the author of VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers. He recently left HP, where he worked in the Virtualization, Linux, and High-Performance Technical Computing teams. Haletky owns AstroArch Consulting, providing virtualization, security, and network consulting and development. Haletky is also a Guru and moderator for the VMware discussion forums, providing answers to security and configuration questions.
We have 15 copies of Haletky's book up for grabs. Go here for entry details (competition will open Nov. 1) and go here for a sneak peek of the book.
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