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Part3 How to Configure Flex10 with Multiple c7000s vSphere4

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Note: If you missed Part I and Part II the both outline the overall hardware topology of the 2 c7000 storage and networking both from a core router perspective to HP Flex-10 and Virtual Connect.

You can find PartI here and Part II here.

Moving on from where we left off with virtual connect and defined server profiles ESX/ESXi will need to be installed.  Once installed you will have your host with 1 nic assigned to one virtual switch for the service console without any redundant nics.

Unclaimed Network Adapters should look like this picture below.

  • Vmnic1 will be assigned to the service console
  • Vmnic 2 and Vmnic 3 will be used in a Dvs for Vmotion
  • VMnic 4 and Vmnic 5 will be usedin a Dvs  for Fault Tolerance
  • VMnic 6 and 7 will be used in a Dvs for virtual machine network traffic with port groups for both production and development virtual machines.

Step 1: Create a redundant service console.

The first step should be assigning VMnic1 to the service console available network adapters on each ESX host via the vswitch0 the regular virtual switch.  This is the same as ESX version 3.x and below.  You may also want to take out any virtual machine network that was assigned to that switch in install.

Step 2:  Create a Dvs for Vmotion

Switching views inside of virtual center to inventory networking you will then want to create a new vNetwork distributed switch.  You can customize your name to what makes sense.  Then select the appropriate amount of network uplinks, in our example that is 2 one for the e or f side.  Next you will want to assign specifically the adapters for vmotion….Now the adapters are the same as listed above (vmnic 2 and 3) for each host regardless of being in which chassis will have the ports configured as above just like our server profiles.   This makes it really easy.  Once the switch is created it would be a good idea to rename the port group to something logical for your enviroment.

Next switch views in virtual center to inventory->hosts and cluster->(host)->configuration->networking->distributed virtual switch and define your vmkernal for vmotion.  This is the same as a standard vswitch and has to be done on each host.  Again, since we didnt assign the vmotion or FT networks to a shared uplink the networks will only communicate between the flex-10 switches.  I like this for added security.  This means you can use any non-routable address scheme (e.g. 192.168.99.0-255/255.255.255.0).

Step 3:  Create a Dvs for Fault Tolerance.

This is the exact same as the Vmotion example.  Switching views inside of virtual center to inventory->networking you will then want to create a new vNetwork distributed switch.  You can customize your name to what makes sense.  Then select the appropriate amount of network uplinks, in our example that is 2 one for the e or f side.  Next you will want to assign specifically the adapters for fault tolerance….Now the adapters are the same as listed above (vmnic 4 and 5) for each host regardless of being in which chassis will have the ports configured as above just like our server profiles.   This makes it really easy.  Once the switch is created it would be a good idea to rename the port group to something logical for your enviroment.

Next switch views in virtual center to inventory->hosts and cluster->(host)->configuration->networking->distributed virtual switch and define your vmkernal for fault tolerance.  This is the same as a standard vswitch and has to be done on each host.  It is very similar to vmotion instead of checking the box for vmotion check the box for fault tolerance.  Again, since we didn’t assign the vmotion or FT networks to a shared uplink the networks will only communicate between the flex-10 switches.  I like this for added security.  This means you can use any non-routable address scheme (e.g. 192.168.98.0-255/255.255.255.0).

Step 4: Creating a Dvs for Virtual Machine traffic with 2 Vlans

This is similar to the above examples, but different in that our Dvs will have 2 port groups each specifically mapping the Vlan for the routed traffic since there connected to shared uplinks….Going with our first post lets say vlan 96 is a development network and 97 is a production network….I like to create seperate Vlans for ease of use for ACLs etc…

Switching views inside of virtual center to inventory->networking you will then want to create a new vNetwork distributed switch.  You can customize your name to what makes sense.  Then select the appropriate amount of network uplinks, in our example that is 2 one for the a or b side or c and d (depending which chassis the blade resides).  Next you will want to assign specifically the adapters for virtual machine traffic….Now the adapters are the same as listed above (vmnic 6 and 7) for each host regardless of being in which chassis will have the ports configured as above just like our server profiles.   This makes it really easy.  Once the switch is created rename the port group created to something logical like productionvms and assign the corresponding VLAN id 97 in this example.  Then click the switch and add another port group rename it to something logical like developmentvms and assign the corresponding VLAN id 96 in this example.

Now when you create a new virtual machine or move a virtual machine to the new cluster you will need to specify the network port group on the virtual machine for it to communicate on.

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Part1 How to Configure Flex10 with Multiple c7000s Vsphere4

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This is an overview of a Flex-10 (active/active) stacked HP C7000′s for Vsphere 4.  There will be several posts following suit outlining the setup configuration….

Utilizing HP Virtual Connect and Flex-10 Networking enabled a very clean and efficient enviroment from the aspect of utilizing the two built in network loms both 10gb and providing 10GB uplinks to a core router instead of a cabling mess.

Many resources are available online to get the design that you want although in this example were veering from “the docs” to provide a separate non uplinked Vmotion and Fault Tolerance network for added security.  Since these networks can’t leave the chassis they are more secure.  From a VMware prospective we end up with 4 switches 1 standard vs for the service console allocated at 1gb with 4 uplink (1 to each flex-10 switch), 1 dVS for fault tolerance allocated with 1gb with 4 uplinks (1 to each flex-10 switch),1 dVS for vmotion allocated with 2gb with 4 uplinks (1 to each flex-10 switch), and 6gb to a dVS for VMware networks with multiple Vlans separated out for production and non-production networks.

Core Router Configuration:

Since port channel is Cisco exclusive LACP must be used the upstream configuration is fairly straight forward so we have the following scenario three networks 3 Vlans needed 1 for production VMs (Vlan 95), 1 for development VMs (Vlan 94), and 1 for management network (Vlan96 used for service console) again we won’t be creating uplinks from the Flex-10 switches for fault tolerance or VMotion so no configuration is needed.

Here is the config:

interface TenGigabitEthernet6/1
description HP Flex-10 NIC (left) Port 2
switchport
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 94,95,96
switchport mode trunk
channel-protocol lacp
channel-group 1 mode active
spanning-tree portfast edge

 

switchport
switchport trunk encapsulation dot1q
switchport trunk allowed vlan 94.95.96
switchport mode trunk
spanning-tree portfast edge

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