VSAN and Teaming NIC

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CedricT
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:14 pm

Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:30 pm

Hi,

We are considering using vsan free. Still we have a problem to understand what is the exact position of Starwind about network teaming. Let me explain.

We have 2 hosts hyper-v with 4 *10Gbit interfaces and 16 *1Gbit interfaces. We are planning to use the network like that:

1 teaming for ISCSI and Heartbeat => 2*10Gbit interfaces . LACP configured on switchs
1 teaming for Synchronisation => 2*10Gbit interfaces . LACP configured on switchs
1 teaming for management => 2*1Gbit interfaces . LACP configured on switchs
for the others interfaces available will assign them later to vms.

The purpose of this configuration should be to have the performance and failover ready for any case of problem.

I read VSAN doesn't support any kind of teaming. Is it still true? What would you recommend to have failover configuration and good performance?

Thank you
Boris (staff)
Staff
Posts: 805
Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 8:18 am

Mon Apr 15, 2019 10:27 pm

Any kind of NIC teaming is not recommended. Technically it may work, but such usage scenarios are neither tested nor supported.
Instead, you could have multiple NICs configured as synchronization and iSCSI links. I assume you've got 2 physical network cards, A and B. If so, make sure that you use 1 port of each of them for different purpose:
A1 - iSCSI
A2 - Sync
B1 - iSCSI
B2 - Sync
This way you will be able to achieve redundancy at the level of physical network cards and avoid total loss of connectivity for either iSCSI or sync links in case one networks card becomes non-functional.
CedricT
Posts: 36
Joined: Mon Apr 15, 2019 1:14 pm

Tue Apr 16, 2019 7:34 am

Hi,

Thank you Boris for your quick reply.

So you would recommend using MPIO as I understand. We'll configure as you describe.

Do you have any complete documentation for MPIO configuration with VSAN Free and Hyper-v?

And last question, what kind of speed connection is better for ISCSI and SYNC networks?

Thank you.
Boris (staff)
Staff
Posts: 805
Joined: Fri Jul 28, 2017 8:18 am

Tue Apr 16, 2019 2:21 pm

You are right. MPIO is what we recommend using.
https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... erver-2016 should be quite fine for you except for the part of StarWind devices creation. If you have a look at the sample scripts provided as part of StarWindX installation, you will probably get the proper way through this. If not, let me know in this thread if any particular questions arise.
As for NIC bandwidth, for most scenarios 2 links 10Gbps each should work just fine unless you've got really fast physical storage and high IOPS requirements.
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