AmericanBridge
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IBM Blade Center w/ Vmware ESX server 2.x Networking
My question is simple but could turn out to create a complicated answer. An IBM BladeCenter is installed with Vmware ESX server and running two blades with windows server 2003 servers on each Blade.
My question is: In reference to the 4port gigabit controllers that the Blade Center uses to connect to the rest of the network, how does Vmware, the Windows servers, and the Blade Center handle the architecture. In other words, how does it all connect and work with each other?
Thanks in advance,
AB
My question is: In reference to the 4port gigabit controllers that the Blade Center uses to connect to the rest of the network, how does Vmware, the Windows servers, and the Blade Center handle the architecture. In other words, how does it all connect and work with each other?
Thanks in advance,
AB
VMware doesn't really know about the ethernet modules, they are just ethernet switches, 4 external ports plus 1 internal port to each blade server.
The bladecenter knows about the switches in an electrical sense in as much as its backplane connects the servers ethernet ports to the switches and it provides the equivalent of serial port access to control their settings. Yours may be Cisco or Nortel, both make 4 port ones.
www-03.ibm.com/systems/uk/
The bladecenter knows about the switches in an electrical sense in as much as its backplane connects the servers ethernet ports to the switches and it provides the equivalent of serial port access to control their settings. Yours may be Cisco or Nortel, both make 4 port ones.
www-03.ibm.com/systems/uk/
ASKER
Well that definitely brings some clarity to the topic.
My biggest concern is where to place the physical ports from the BC. I wasn't the original installer of this device so I'm not sure how it was originally setup. I am not sure whether or not to place the physical ports within the management VLAN or the server VLAN. The management VLAN contains all other networking devices within the network. The server VLAN, of course, matches the IP of the servers placed on the Blade Center, as well as all the other servers in the farm.
Thanks again.
AB
My biggest concern is where to place the physical ports from the BC. I wasn't the original installer of this device so I'm not sure how it was originally setup. I am not sure whether or not to place the physical ports within the management VLAN or the server VLAN. The management VLAN contains all other networking devices within the network. The server VLAN, of course, matches the IP of the servers placed on the Blade Center, as well as all the other servers in the farm.
Thanks again.
AB
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ASKER
This weekend I am going to try both. I'll post how the test goes.
ASKER
OK,
I tested a new config and got this in the end:
Blade Center MGMT modules are connected to the MGMT vlan
Blade Center 4 port ethernet are connected to the SERVER vlan
each individual blades need a def route and new subnet mask
And voila, that's all it needs. The Blades and Vmware in a sense route their own traffic and the 4 ports are essentailly hubs.
Hope this info will be helpful to anyone who needs it.
***Cleanup Agent or Admin, please close this post but do not delete.
I tested a new config and got this in the end:
Blade Center MGMT modules are connected to the MGMT vlan
Blade Center 4 port ethernet are connected to the SERVER vlan
each individual blades need a def route and new subnet mask
And voila, that's all it needs. The Blades and Vmware in a sense route their own traffic and the 4 ports are essentailly hubs.
Hope this info will be helpful to anyone who needs it.
***Cleanup Agent or Admin, please close this post but do not delete.
I thought I had answered it? Was there something in my posts you didn't understand? The 4 external ports are part of the switch, it's not a hub.
VMWare is the interface between the hardware and the OS. VMWare will take your physical hardware - cpu, menory, disk, etc. and allow you to create them as virtual entities to be used (and shared) by your virtual servers. This allows you to have 5, 10 or 20 virtual servers running on a single blade. The number of virtual servers that can run on a single blade will depend on the blades hardware specs. The beefier the better.