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Topic Title: Performance impact of shared networj and dedicated network?
Topic Summary: Performance impact of installation mode
Created On: 02/02/2007 06:28 PM
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 02/02/2007 06:28 PM
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Liang
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Posts: 21
Joined: 02/02/2007

Hello,

I'm just wondering if there is any performance impact between shared network mode and dedicated network mode.

If I can configure both modes when I install VI, which mode is preferred by Virtual Iron from performance persepctive?

Thanks,

Liang

 02/02/2007 10:20 PM
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cbarclay
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Posts: 216
Joined: 04/28/2006

For performance and reliability reasons, we recommend using the dedicated network.
 02/06/2007 01:46 PM
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Chapindad
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Posts: 19
Joined: 12/04/2006

Dedicated by far. The shared mode was a big mistake and was actually going to ditch the software because of the performance and management problems I ran into with it. But I decided to give the software a fair shot and ran it the way production would run and everything I had problems with went away in the dedicated mode. Do not get me wrong. The shared mode works but you will notice a few weird things such as the VMs don't always start the first time after a change in its properties without an error because of the behind the scenes switching the manager is doing on the server to accommodate both networks.
 02/27/2007 08:11 PM
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maladil
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Posts: 10
Joined: 02/27/2007

I'm brand new to VI, so I'm going to start annoying folks for a while until I get my head wrapped around it all.

I want to set up about 7 VM's on a machine.  The machine is a DELL PowerEdgeTM  SC1435.  Saddly it only has 2 Gig port NIC's available and a Raid controller, or 4 Gig port NIC's and no Raid controller.

If all the virtual NIC's that I want to set up are in the same VLAN but with different IP addresses, is there a problem with having only physical 2 NICs?

Does VI require a heartbeat and management VLAN interface like ESX does?

Also, does VI do dot1q trunking?


-------------------------
Thanks,
Jason

Edited: 02/27/2007 at 08:23 PM by maladil
 02/27/2007 10:52 PM
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darmlin
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Jason,

If all of the VNIC's you want to set up are on the same VLAN there is not a problem having only 2 physical NIC's. The only problem is the possibility of you saturating the physical NIC if all of your VM's are I/O intensive.

Yes, VI recommends a management network/vlan to separate management traffic from guest os traffic.

VI does support 802.1q trunking in guests now. However, comprehensive VLAN support is coming in a release in a the coming weeks.
 02/28/2007 12:38 AM
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maladil
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I've done as much looking as I can and didn't find any info on Nic Teaming.  Does VI currently support bonding NICs like ESX?  Is there any info on the planned changes for the new version coming soon?

-------------------------
Thanks,
Jason
 02/28/2007 08:23 AM
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snoyes
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NIC teaming is not currently supported. It is in our plans to support this, but we don't yet have it slotted for a specific release.
 02/28/2007 09:44 AM
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maladil
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Darn.  Other than sharing bandwidth, is there a performance penalty to running several VNiCs over 1 physical NIC.

 

Keep in mind that it is a Gig port.



-------------------------
Thanks,
Jason

Edited: 02/28/2007 at 09:44 AM by maladil
 03/01/2007 09:43 AM
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cbarclay
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Multiple vNICs connect to a bridge out to the physical NIC. There is negligable performance overhead -- the vNICs operate at wire speed.
 03/01/2007 12:07 PM
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maladil
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Joined: 02/27/2007

Originally posted by: darmlin

Jason, If all of the VNIC's you want to set up are on the same VLAN there is not a problem having only 2 physical NIC's. The only problem is the possibility of you saturating the physical NIC if all of your VM's are I/O intensive. Yes, VI recommends a management network/vlan to separate management traffic from guest os traffic. VI does support 802.1q trunking in guests now. However, comprehensive VLAN support is coming in a release in a the coming weeks.


Last question then I guess on this.

Is Fast Etherchannel / Giga Etherchannel supported or LACP or PAgP since NIC Teaming is not currently supported?  Or do you know if the new version out soon will have the Etherchannel support?

-------------------------
Thanks,
Jason
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