When configuring networking on an ESX/ESXi server it is important that you plan and configure it correctly.
Doing so will ensure you get the best reliability, performance and security within your virtual network.
Depending on your requirements the configuration will vary slightly. For example if network storage such and iSCSI and NFS will be used the setup will need to plan for this.
I will explain the different setups for these needs.
The following setup is the best for a server with 3 physical networks cards.
Configuration for a server without network based IP storage:
Physical NIC Virtual Switch Port Group(s)
vmnic0 vSwitch0 Service Console + VM Network
vmnic1 vSwitch0 Service Console + VM Network
vmnic2 vSwitch1 vMotion
Configuration using network based IP storage:
Physical NIC Virtual Switch Port Group(s)
vmnic0 vSwitch0 Service Console + VM Network + VMkernel (IP Storage)
vmnic1 vSwitch0 Service Console + VM Network + VMkernel (IP Storage)
vmnic2 vSwitch1 vMotion
The best use of 3 NICs is to ensure reliability of the important traffic such as the service console, virtual machines and IP storage if used.
vMotion traffic is not as imporant because a failure to this network will not bring VMs down or cause any issues. they just will not Vmotion.
If a host happened to fail then HA would still bring up the VM on another host as vMotion is not used for that process.
Ideally VLANs should be used to seperate these networks.
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