Simplify VMware vSphere* 4 Networking with Intel Ethernet 10 Gigabit Server Adapters

VMware
VMotion*
VMware vNetwork
Distributed Switch
vSSO
Port #1
10Gb
Port #2
10Gb
1Gb1Gb
APP
OS
APP
OS
APP
OS
Service
Console
APP
OS
Virtual Switch
Virtual NICs
Physical NICs
Port
Groups
APP
OS
APP
OS
APP
OS
VMware
VMotion*
Service
Console
APP
OS
1Gb 1Gb 1Gb1Gb1Gb 1Gb1Gb1Gb
Figure 1. Virtual switch with multiple physical GbE server adapters.
In many cases, hosts must have as
many as eight or more GbE network
ports to satisfy these requirements. As
shown in Figure 1, several port groups
areconguredtosupportthevarious
networking functions and application
groupings, and in turn each port group
is supplied with one or more physical
connections. Virtual LAN (VLAN) tags may be
implemented on these port groups as well.
This topology raises the following issues:
•Complexity and inefficiency. Many
physical ports and cables make the
environment very complex, and the large
number of server adapters consumes a
great deal of power.
•Difficult network management.
The presence of eight to 12 ports per
server makes the environment difficult
to manage and maintain, and multiple
connections increase the likelihood of
misconfiguration.
• Increased risk of failure. The presence
of multiple physical devices and cable
connections increases the points of
potential failure and overall risk.
•Bandwidth limitations. Static
bandwidth allocation and physical
reconnections are required to add more
bandwidth to the GbE network.
The practice of using large numbers
of GbE connections has persisted even
though 10GbE networking provides the
ability to consolidate multiple functions
onto a single network connection, greatly
simplifying the network infrastructure
required to support the host.
Part of this continuing adherence
to a legacy approach is due to the
outdated understandings of security
and networking. For example, some
administrators believe that dedicated
VMotion connections must be physically
separated because they mistrust
VLAN security and question bandwidth
allocation requirements. Others assume
that discrete network connections are
required to avoid interference between
network functions.
Although these types of concerns may
have been well founded in the past,
modern switching equipment and server
adapters have addressed them. Now is the
time to take advantage of Intel Ethernet
10GbE Server Adapters.
The Solution: Refresh Infrastructure
with 10 Gigabit Ethernet
The complexity issue and other limitations
associated with GbE described above can
be addressed by consolidating all types of
trafconto10GbEconnections.
With the advent of dynamic server
consolidation and increasingly powerful
servers such as those based on Intel’s
Nehalem architecture, more workloads
and applications than ever before are
being consolidated per physical host. As a
result, the need is even greater for high-
bandwidth 10GbE solutions. Moreover,
Figure 2. VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch with 10GbE server adapters for network traffic
and GbE server adapters for service console traffic.
features that provide high performance
with multicore servers, optimizations for
virtualization,anduniednetworkingwith
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and
iSCSI make 10GbE the clear connectivity
medium of choice for the data center.
Moving from multiple GbE to fewer
10GbE connections will enable a
exible,dynamic,andscalablenetwork
infrastructure that reduces complexity
and management overhead, and provides
high availability and redundancy. Figure
2 shows an installation analogous to that
in Figure 1, but using 10GbE connectivity
and two GbE ports for the service
console. This installation makes use of
the VMware vNetwork Distributed Switch
(vDS) feature (see Best Practice 1). Using
vDS provides the same basic functions
as standard virtual switches, but they
exist across two or more clustered ESX
3
Simplify VMware vSphere* 4 Networking with Intel® Ethernet 10 Gigabit Server Adapters
3