Comments on: More on VMware ESX NIC Utilization

By: David

David — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 03:38:52 +0000

Hey Scott,
I know that you posted this a few months ago, but just wanted to share our observations. We’ve actually had better and more even distribution using “Route based on MAC hash”. Technically, both MAC hash and Port ID should deliver the same result…the determination is simply based on different factors, but Port ID seemed to bias NICs higher in the failover order too much, like you mentioned.

Also, there’s a Cisco document out (published May 2008) that talks about this. I use it as my “bible” for ESX network config design in a Cisco environment. It can be found here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/vmware/VMwaredg.pdf

Hope this helps someone out there…

- David

By: Ook oude netwerk-artikelen over ESX nog actueel « EarlyBert

Ook oude netwerk-artikelen over ESX nog actueel « EarlyBert — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 15:35:50 +0000

[...] Twee artikelen over load balancing in de virtuele switch van ESX (hier en hier). [...]

By: John

John — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 04:05:11 +0000

Hi Scott,
We have an ESX box with two pNIC’s teamed together and connected to a layer 2 3750 switch in an Etherchannel. Problem is when we change the vSwitch to use IP hash the switch looses the plot regarding VLANs and skipping between ports.

Will this only work on a layer 3 version of the switch? Thanks John

By: fred

fred — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 07:10:21 +0000

Thaks Scott, I’m happy to see that i’m not alone: it’s totally true for the originating port id ! I’ve made some tests with iperf and i saw the same thing : severals vm using the same physical nic !
Just a question about the lag: what is the maximum bandwith a vm can have with two physical nics used with ip hash? 1 Gbits or 2 ?
Thks !

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:34:45 +0000

Thanks Scott, it is always nice to have a quick and easy reference for this type of information.

By: Virgil

Virgil — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 23:55:11 +0000

Scott, thanks for the refresh. Regarding NIC teaming inside the VM, I’ve been thinking (and assuming) the same thing.

Will get back you when I get a chance to test it.

Virgil