vSphere standard switches and distributed switches

[Shad]

At the moment I've got 3 hosts and each one has the same vSwitches and port groups configured, so I can move VMs around and the networking all works. It's a bit of a fiddle though especially creating new VLANs because I have to do the config three times.

I've started looking into changing to distributed switches instead. My question is really whether or not I can run the existing standard vSwitches and the new distributed switches on the same NIC ports at the same time? This would help with testing and then moving things over.

 

[Dogers]

We've just started using proper VMWare with the vDS - you can't use both vS and vDS with the same NICs that I've seen, you need separate connections.

The vDS does look to solve some issues I've thought of while looking at the VMWare setup. It allows us to talk to our new switches in a proper port channel so they aggregate bandwidth properly, allowing for *real* failover

 

[Deleted member 138126]

My question is really whether or not I can run the existing standard vSwitches and the new distributed switches on the same NIC ports at the same time? This would help with testing and then moving things over.

No, a NIC can only belong to one switch (vSwitch or dvSwitch) at a time.

It is extremely tricky to get dvSwitches configured without at least two NICs, as you need one NIC to maintain connection to the box while you are creating the dvSwitch. If you have a single NIC and you assign the NIC to a dvSwitch (while taking it from a vSwitch), you will lose connectivity to the server. Basically with a single NIC you have to do it via the command line via ILO, and it is quite tricky to get all the syntax right.

 

[Shad]

Ok, thanks chaps.

Each host has 3 NIC ports, 2 are for VM traffic and connect to a port channel on the switch and the other is for management only (separate NIC). So by my reckoning I should be able to remove one port from the VM traffic vSwitch, remove the port channel config, build the vDS using the now spare port, migrate the VMs over, re-create the port channel and add connect the remaining port to the vDS - right?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Each host has 3 NIC ports, 2 are for VM traffic and connect to a port channel on the switch and the other is for management only (separate NIC). So by my reckoning I should be able to remove one port from the VM traffic vSwitch, remove the port channel config, build the vDS using the now spare port, migrate the VMs over, re-create the port channel and add connect the remaining port to the vDS - right?

Spot on.