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)
pNIC1 -> vSwitch0 -> Portgroup0 (service console)
pNIC2 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC3 -> vSwitch1 -> Portgroup1 (VMotion)
pNIC4 -> vSwitch2 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC5 -> vSwitch2 -> Portgroup2 (Storage Network)
pNIC6 -> vSwitch3 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
pNIC7 -> vSwitch3 -> Portgroup3 (VM Network)
With 8 pNICs you can setup four redundant vSwitches each for different purposes one for the service console/management appliance, one for VMotion, another just for the Storage Network to grant higher levels of redundancy, and finally one solely for the VM Network which includes redundancy.
In this configuration there is no need for predefined failover modes within the vSwitches, just the default which includes vSwitch Port ID based load balancing. In other words, load balancing is outbound only and based on the port to which the VM is connected.
This method will grant the most redundancy, security, and performance for a 8 pNIC configuration.
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.
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Different view on the 8 nics
Hi
We are also running with 8 nics, but don't use them for storage. We have 2 HBA's for storage.
We have only dual port nics. Our pNic (all dual ports) config is like this:
pNic0 -> vswitch0 -> COS -> Cisco-01
pNic1 -> vswitch1 -> VMs -> Cisco-01
pNic2 -> vswitch2 -> VMotion -> Cisco-01
pNic3 -> vswitch1 -> VMs -> Cisco-01
pNic4 -> vswitch0 -> COS -> Cisco-02
pNic5 -> vswitch1 -> VMs -> Cisco-02
pNic6 -> vswitch2 -> VMotion -> Cisco-02
pNic7 -> vswitch1 -> VMs -> Cisco-02
pNic0/2/4/6 are the first port on the dual port nic and ofcourse 1/3/5/7 are the 2nd port on the nic.
In this way, when looking at the server from the back, you see the top row of ports are for COS and VMotion. The bottom row is all for VMs.
The left half is for the first physical cisco switch, the right half for the second.
In this way we have a very redundant network.
Gabrie
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