Network Partition (NPAR) Technology and VMware Virtual Switch comparison using QLogic BCM57800 Dell Network Solutions Engineering February 2016 This application note discusses the pros and cons of the QLogic BCM57800 series network partition (NPAR) technology and VMware’s virtual standard switch (VSS) as well as virtual distributed switch (VDS) with traffic shaping.
Revisions Date Version Description Authors February 2016 1.0 Initial Release Neal Beard Copyright © 2016 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Except as stated below, no part of this document may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without express permission of Dell. You may distribute this document within your company or organization only, without alteration of its contents.
Table of contents Revisions.............................................................................................................................................................................2 3 1 Overview.......................................................................................................................................................................4 2 QLogic BCM57800 Series NPAR with VMware’s VSS ............................................................................
1 Overview When designing networks, one very important consideration is how much bandwidth to allocate to the different devices that need varying levels of throughput.
2 QLogic BCM57800 Series NPAR with VMware’s VSS QLogic’s NPAR technology helps simplify a data center’s network and storage infrastructure in two distinct ways: When using chassis-based blade servers that are limited to two or three PCIe slots, NPAR can increase the uplink ports in VMware by a factor of eight o Rack-based servers, which typically ship with up to eight PCIe slots, can supply enough physical dual- or quad-port network adapters for uplink ports. Since VMware 6.
The QLogic BCM57840 network adapter provisioning in Figure 1 provides for no minimum traffic shaping restrictions and full availability of the transmitted (TX) bandwidth. Administrators can tune these minimum and maximum bandwidth allocation percentages after they know the I/O profile of the application using these NIC partitions. QLogic BCM57840 bandwidth allocation menu 6 Network Partition (NPAR) Technology and VMware Virtual Switch comparison using QLogic BCM57800 | version 1.
Figure 2 identifies the BCM57840 NPAR partitions 1 and 2 for port 1 assigned to the VMware ESXi host’s VSS and VDS networking functions.
3 VMware’s VSS with traffic shaping VMware’s VSS traffic shaping is allowed on outbound traffic from a VM, VMkernel port, or VSS port group. The VMware vSphere client labels this “ingress/RX traffic” since it refers to data being transmitted to the VSS from virtual devices. VSS traffic shaping includes three configurable settings per port group. Average Bandwidth (Kbps) – sets an upper limit on how much data the port can transmit.
Figure 4 shows the VSS Traffic Shaping tab in VMware vSphere 6.0U1 with the status set to “enabled” and the remaining three fields set to allow the maximum throughput of the network adapter. Adjust these fields in production environments based on business needs after determining an I/O profile for the application(s) utilizing the VM, VMkernel port or VSS port group.
Table 2 lists the pros, and cons of the VMware VSS traffic shaping technology: VMware’s VSS traffic shaping characteristics PROs CONs Able to adjust bandwidth allocation within VMware vSphere Able to change traffic shaping parameters without rebooting ESXi host No VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus license required Allows experienced VMware administrators to manage traffic shaping Bandwidth allocation for “ingress/RX” VM/VMkernel traffic only Peak Bandwidth and Burst Size fields difficult to understand Addi
4 VMware VDS with traffic shaping VMs, VMkernel ports and VDS port groups support VMware VDS traffic shaping on outbound and inbound traffic. VMware vSphere calls this “ingress or egress” traffic since it refers to the fact that data is being transmitted to the VDS from virtual devices or from the VDS to virtual devices.
Figure 6 shows the VDS port group Traffic Shaping settings in VMware vSphere 6.0 with the top status set to Enabled and the remaining three fields in each section configured to allow the maximum throughput possible. Adjust these fields in production environments based on business needs after determining an I/O profile for the application(s) utilizing the VM, VMkernel port or VDS port group.
Table 3 lists the pros and cons of the VMware VDS traffic shaping technology VMware’s VDS Traffic Shaping Characteristics PROs CONs Able to adjust bandwidth allocation within VMware vSphere ESXi Able to change traffic shaping parameters without rebooting ESXi host Bandwidth allocation for TX/RX VM/VMkernel traffic VMware vSphere Enterprise plus license required Peak Bandwidth and Burst Size fields difficult to understand Additional complexity calculating TX/RX traffic VMware VDS traffic shaping pros an
5 A VMware VDS with VM network resource pools In VMware vSphere 6.0, Network I/O Control (NIOC) version 3 provides network resource pools to partition network capacity during a resource contention event. These network resource pools provide predictable networking performance while different network traffic streams contend for the same bandwidth. Following is the list of the nine predefined system network-resource pools: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Figure 7 shows a Normal Share value of 50, a Reservation value of 1000Mbit/s (1GbE) and a Limit value of 10000 Mbit/s (10GbE). Based on the mission-criticality of virtual machines and their applications, administrators can adjust these values to a Share value of High (100 shares), as well as increasing the Reservation and Limit values. VM Network Resource Pool Configuration 15 Network Partition (NPAR) Technology and VMware Virtual Switch comparison using QLogic BCM57800 | version 1.
6 Conclusion Dell EMC’s standards-based NPAR technology in VMware’s vSphere ESXi 6.0 hypervisor provides the opportunity to engineer bandwidth on a granular basis. This allows any enterprise to customize their network to meet their traffic needs. Traffic shaping customization, along with a detailed I/O profile study, ensures that administrators proactively address all aspects of bandwidth allocation rather than responding to them reactively.
A Component Revisions Table 4 shows the hardware components and associated firmware revisions of the equipment used for the examples in this document: Component Description/Firmware Versions PowerEdge M1000e chassis Chassis Management Controller (CMC) Firmware 4.5.A00 CMC Hardware Version A03 Midplane Version 1.1 PowerEdge M630 Server BIOS 1.2.5 QLogic BCM57800 Series Network Adapter FW 7.12.
B Additional Information https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-60networking-guide.pdf http://www.pearsonitcertification.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2190191&seqNum=7 http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=10225 85 http://www.virten.net/2015/09/vcp6-delta-part-7-network-enhancements/#Bandwidth-Allocation-for-VirtualMachine-Traffic http://frankdenneman.
