Dell N series switch (N2024)

What do you want to do ?

Normally you would configure two switches in a stack or LAG for use as a Storage Network, which does not require to route iSCSI packets ?

Hi Andrew.
I'd like to have my VMs on a different subnet from the management network. And different subnet for vmotion too.
What would be the normal setup to route this traffic? I was thinking it would get done on the switch but i'm starting to get confused.

What did you purchase the switchs for the Storage Network ?

The traffic from the host to the SAN across these switchs is different to Network Traffic from the VM OS.

vMotion traffic  it's private. (isolated).

Storage Traffic is private and isolated.

So you want VMs and Management Network to be on different subnets, that's okay, do you need to route then between them.

They are Layer 3 switches, with Inter VLAN Routing which can do that as well.

Yes, the switches were for storage to ESXI hosts really. Please see attachment to for the physical setup. (The switches are stacked)
I'm wanting to route my VMs out through the switches ideally but not sure how . I also (think) i will need to tag the switch ports to let my various subnets (vmotion etc) through the physical port. Is that correct?

Okay, so if they were purchased for storage network, that's got nothing to do with VM OS traffic!

So what are you wanting to do, use them for STORAGE only ? or not ?

do you have other switches for use with vMotion and Network traffic ?

I don't have any other switches or any space to put more in. So i will need to use these switches for storage and all other VM related traffic.

Okay, so I would recommend, you use VLANs to isolate

1. iSCSI Traffic - Storage Traffic
2. vMotion Traffic
3. VM Traffic
4. Management Traffic

This can be done quite easily by preparing a static trunks for 3 & 4 above, and static trunks for 1 & 2 above.

Thanks Andrew.
Do you mean you segregate 1 & 2 to one physical port / network cable ? and the same for 3 & 4.
I still need to know how to route on the switch so my VMs can get to the uplink / external internet access.

You will need to create a static trunk with at least two network ports/cables, connected to host, and then use VLAN Tagging, to complete, 1,2,3 and 4.

You will need to configure routing on the physical switches, to send packets to your gateway for internet access.

First things first, you need to start creating trunks for the hosts, for SAN access.

Okay, thank you.
I've found where to link subnets to vlans, so I think i'm good.
One last question: At the moment I have 2 network cables from each ESXI host to the switches and they are NIC Teamed together. Is this going to be enough or should i utilise my other 2 empty NICs and have 4 connections to the switches?

Thanks very much for all your help Andrew.