- Notes, cautions, and warnings
- Revision history
- Introduction
- VxRail network planning overview
- Plan the VxRail network
- VxRail cluster types
- VxRail hardware and switch selection decision points
- Prepare the data center to implement VxRail
- Decide on an IP address scheme
- Prepare external network connectivity for VxRail
- Prepare service connectivity for VxRail
- Prepare for VMware vSphere+ subscription licensing
- Prepare data center routing services
- Prepare for multirack VxRail cluster
- Prepare for VMware vSAN HCI mesh topology
- Prepare external FC storage for dynamic clusters
- Prepare for VxRail custom uplink assignments
- Prepare data center network MTU
- Prepare for LAG of VxRail networks
- Plan LAG on switch port pairs
- Prepare certificate authority server for VxRail
- Identify isolation IP addresses for VMware vSphere High Availability
- Plan the VxRail cluster implementation
- Decide on VxRail single point of management
- Decide on VxRail network traffic segmentation
- Decide on teaming and failover policies for VxRail networks
- Plan the VxRail logical network
- Plan network settings for VxRail management components
- Plan network settings for VMware vCenter Server management network
- Identify IP addresses for VxRail management components
- Select hostnames for VxRail management components
- Identify external applications and settings for VxRail
- Prepare the customer-managed VMware vCenter Server
- Prepare a customer-managed VMware VDS
- Reserve IP addresses for VxRail-managed VMware vSphere vMotion network
- Reserve IPv4/IPv6 addresses for VxRail vSAN network
- Decide on VxRail logging solution
- Assign passwords for VxRail management
- Plan VMware vSAN witness networking
- Plan networking for VxRail Satellite Nodes
- Configure the Network for VxRail
- Prepare to build the VxRail cluster
- VxRail network considerations after implementation
- Appendix A: VxRail Network Configuration Table
- Appendix B: VxRail Passwords
- Appendix C: VxRail cluster setup checklist
- Appendix D: VxRail Open Ports Requirements
- Appendix E: VMware VDS port group default settings
- Appendix F: Physical Network Switch Examples
- Pre-defined network profile: 2x10gb or 2x25gb from a single NDC/OCP
- Predefined network profile: 4x10gb or 4x25gb NDC/OCP
- Predefined network profile: 2 x 10/25 GB NDC/OCP and 2 x 10/25 GB PCIe
- Custom option: Any NDC/OCP ports paired with PCIe ports
- Custom option: Two NDC/OCP ports paired with PCIe ports other than the first slot
- Custom option: PCIe ports only
- Custom option: Six ports
- Custom option: Eight ports
- Custom option: Eight ports connected to four Ethernet switches
Dell VxRail Network Planning Guide
Configure your network to support RoCE
This section is relevant if you are planning to deploy a VxRail cluster with vSAN using RoCE-compliant Ethernet adapters.
If the VxRail nodes that are targeted for deployment are configured with Ethernet adapters that support RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE), configure the switches and supporting network to enable a lossless network for the vSAN traffic.
Converting a cluster to enable RoCE on the vSAN data store is performed after the VxRail initial build. Consult the technical reference guides from your switch vendor for the specific steps to configure on the physical network. The basic steps to ensure a lossless network are as follows:
- VMware vSAN with RDMA supports NIC failover, but does not support LAG or NIC teaming based on IP address hash.
- Data Center Bridging must be enabled on the switches supporting the VxRail cluster.
- Control traffic flow on the switches using a mechanism such as Priority Flow Control (PFC). Set the RoCE network to a higher priority as outlined in your vendor documentation.
- Configure RoCE on vSAN on a priority-enabled VLAN.
- If the VMware vSAN traffic will be on a routed Layer 3 network, the lossless network settings must be preserved when routed across network devices using a feature such as the Differentiated Service Code Point (DSCP) QoS setting.
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