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ESXi NIC Design

Hello,

I'm looking at getting two hp dl360p servers, with 4 nics each, vmware essentials plus and a netapp 2220 san.

What would be the recommended way to configure the network? I'm used to working with DAS storage currently and the free ESXi hypervisor.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

CITG_Carl

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mmicha

ASKER

I'm not hard tied to 4, that is just the standard amount the servers come with. This is a manufacturing company with about 65 computers.

I'm thinking iSCSI for the protocol on the storage side.

So with 4 nics, just two vlans. Production and Storage.

What is your preferred layout?

CITG_Carl

Are you going to be using full blown ESXi moving forward. My preferred method is using 8 nics per physical host, then using two dedicated storage switches.

vnic0 - vswitch0 - production/management
vnic1 - vswitch0 - production/management
vnic2 - vswitch1 - iscsi 1
vnic3 - vswitch1 - iscsi1
vnic4 - vswitch2 - iscsi2
vnic5 - vswitch2 - iscsi2
vnic6 - vswitch3 - vmotion
vnic7 - vswitch3 - vmotion

This will give you full redundancy against switch or controller failure

Cheers

SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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