In this post, we will configure the vMotion networking for our ESXi hosts. Each ESXi host has 8 vmincs as show below
As mentioned in the first post of this series, vmnic0 and vmnic1 are already used for management. vmnic2 and vmnic3 will be used for vMotion, and vmnic4 and vmnic5 will be used for iSCSI
vMotion is pretty easy to configure, we just create a VMkernel port group, specify that i will be used for vMotion traffic and assign an IP address to it.
However, the trick is on the iSCSI configuration, where two VMMkernel port need to be created on each host. Each VMkernel port will have one active vminc and another non used vmnic. This is way to have redundant paths to our iSCSI Target, and this is also the only configuration supported by VMware.
We already have one standard vSwitch named vSwitch0 used for hosts managment, and we’ll create VMKernel port group in a new vSwitch that will be used for vMotion.
Let’s go ahead and create our vMotion port group.
Configuring the vMotion Network
Go to the first host, in my lab esx1.contoso.local, then go to Manage > Networking > Virtual Switches and click on Add host networking
Choose VMKernel Network Adapter
We’ll create our vMotion port group in a new vSwitch
Select the appropriate vmnic that will be used for vMotion traffic (vmnic2 and vmnic3)
Confirm you selection then click on Next
Give a descriptive name to your port group, and specify that it will be used for vMotion
Assign a static IP in the vMotion range (172.16.0.0/16)
Confirm your port group creation by clicking on Finish
Our VMKernel vMotion port group is now created in a new vSwitch1
This was short and easy. We’ll just need to follow the same steps in our second host and we’re done with our vMotion network.
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vMotion is now configured on both hosts.
In the next post, we’ll configure the iSCSI network to enable the ESXi hosts for storage connectivity
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