VMware ESX to VSP 8404

[Mark_van_Strien]

Hi,

Question on what is the best practise for ESX server connecting to a redundant pair of VSP’s?  What are you using, and is there a difference between ESX hosts with servers or ESX hosts  with VDI’s?

We now are using a SMLT on the network site and “route based on IP hash” on the VMware side. Is LBT on the VMware side better ? and do you set anything on the VSP side ?

Hoping on some good pro or cons.

Mark.

[Mark_van_Strien]

Ludovico,

Thx for the reply ! i will check with the vmware  people 🙂

kind regards Mark

[Ludovico_Steven · Accepted solution]

All modes are supported on the VSP side.

The best mode depends on what is best on the server side.

“route based on IP hash” is usually good if you have few VMs which pump a lot of data, so that you can balance that traffic on all the available ESX NICs. Typically vport hash and LBT are more common, for a greater number of VMs which do not generate huge amounts of traffic; then you can get good NIC load balancing with vport hashing and LBT is even better as it will dynamically re-allocate VMs to NICs based on load usage.

You should be able to find guidance on the right mode for you in VmWare documentation.

Just remember that if you are doing “route based on IP hash” then you must configure MLT/SMLT (with or without LACP) on the VSP side (for a given VM, ESX will hash traffic on both NICs, and VSPs can send return traffic to that VM on both NICs as well).

If instead you are using vport hashing or LBT, then you must not configure any MLT/SMLT on the VSP side (a VM gets allocated to 1 single NIC and the VSPs are expected to send return traffic to that VM on the very same NIC - MAC learning on the VSPs ensures that). Indeed, if all your servers are ESX Hypervisors and you only use vport hashing or LBT, then your VSPs might not need any SMLT ports, and hence no virtual-IST either. Though usually it does not harm to have the VSPs paired in vIST pairs, just in case you did need an SMLT connection at some point.