Reference Guide

vStart 100 and 200 VMware vSphere Reference Architecture
Dell Inc 13
The table below summarizes the use of each traffic type.
Traffic Type Summary Table 3.
Traffic Type
Use
Management
Supports virtualization management traffic and communication between the
ESXi servers in the cluster, and configuration and monitoring of the storage
arrays and LAN switches.
vMotion
Supports migration of VMs between ESXi servers in the cluster.
VM
Supports communication between the VMs hosted on the ESXi cluster and
external systems.
Out-of-Band
Management
Supports configuration and monitoring of the servers through the iDRAC
management interface.
iSCSI Data
Supports iSCSI traffic between the servers and storage array(s). In addition,
the SAN switches can be managed on this network.
5.2 LAN Architecture
The LAN includes two PowerConnect 7048 or 6248 switches which support VM, management, vMotion,
and out-of-band management (OOB) traffic. These traffic types are logically separated through the use
of VLANs. The two switches are stacked together which forms a single logical switch and provides a
48Gb stack bandwidth between the two PC6224 switches, or 64Gb stack bandwidth between the two
PC7024 switches. The solution provides four 1Gb uplinks from each switch to link into an existing core
network infrastructure. If the core network infrastructure supports 10Gb Ethernet, then 10Gb uplink
modules may be added to each switch.
The traffic on the LAN is separated into four VLANs: one VLAN each for management, vMotion, VM, and
OOB management traffic. VLAN tagging for the OOB management traffic is performed by the
PowerConnect switches. For the other traffic types, the tagging is performed in the virtual switch by
the ESXi hypervisor. The PowerConnect switches can be configured to provide the routing function.
Additional VLANs can be implemented for VM traffic, if required.
Table 4 provides an overview of the port configurations in the two PowerConnect LAN switches. Trunk
mode is used to allow multiple VLANs on a port, and access mode is used when the switch performs the
VLAN tagging function.
Each PowerEdge R720 has eight 1Gb ports, of which four are dedicated for LAN traffic. In addition, the
iDRAC OOB management interface is connected to the LAN switches. A single ESXi virtual switch is
created to support all LAN traffic. Route based on the originating virtual switch port ID is
recommended for the vSwitch load balancing. Unique port groups are then created for management
and VM traffic. In addition, VMkernel interfaces are defined for management and vMotion traffic.
Each port group and VMkernel interface is configured to tag with the appropriate VLAN. The
Management port group is utilized by the Dell Management Plug-in and the EqualLogic HIT/VE Plug-in
for VMware vCenter.
Figure 4 is a screenshot taken in vCenter Server of the LAN virtual switch on Server 1. ―Mgmt Network‖
is a Virtual Machine Port Group, which allows VMs to communicate on the management network, and