Dell PowerConnect 5316M- User Manual

February 2006

Reprinted from

Dell Power Solutions,

February 2006. Copyright © 2006 Dell Inc. All rights reserved

.

DELL POWER SOLUTIONS

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O N L I N E - E X T R A C O N T E N T

Enabling VMware ESX Server VLAN Network Configurations for the Dell PowerEdge 1855 Blade Server

By Balasubramanian Chandrasekaran, Kyon Holman, Cuong T. Nguyen, and Scott Stanford

VLAN configurations for Dell
PowerEdge 1855 blade servers
running VMware ESX Server

Before implementing virtual LAN (VLAN) configurations for

VMware

®

ESX Server

™

software in Dell

™

PowerEdge

™

1855 blade

server environments, administrators should make sure that they

first back up the configuration on the Dell PowerConnect

™

5316M

switch (which resides in the Dell Modular Server Enclosure along

with the server blades of the PowerEdge 1855 system) using the

following command:

copy running-config backup-config

This will allow administrators to undo any configuration steps

if a problem is encountered. They should run these command-line

interface (CLI) commands from the serial interface to the switch via

the Dell Remote Access Controller/Modular Chassis (DRAC/MC). If

administrators need to restore the previous configuration, they can

use the following command:

copy backup-config startup-config

Then, administrators can reboot the system using the

reload

command to recover from the problem.

The following sections outline step-by-step instructions for

implementing VLANs in the segregated traffic, dedicated VMotion

network, and redundant network interface card (NIC) configurations

for Dell blade server environments.

Segregated traffic configuration

In the segregated traffic configuration, NIC 0 is shared between

the service console and VMotion. NIC 1 is dedicated to the VMs.

The steps to set up the ESX Server environment for the segregated

traffic configuration are as follows:

1.

Log in with root-level privileges to the service console and

execute the command

vmkpcidivy –i

(this interactive com-

mand is designed to allocate devices between the service

console and the VMs). Configure NIC 0 to be shared between

the service console and the VMs.

2.

Reboot the server.

3.

Using the VMware ESX Server Management User Interface

(MUI), create two virtual switches—one for the VMs (NIC 0)

and one for VMotion (NIC 1).

The steps to set up the VLANs and the PowerConnect 5316M

switches for the segregated traffic configuration are as follows:

1.

Set up the virtual switch to tag all VMotion traffic with a

specific VLAN ID of, for example, A—where A is the VLAN

ID used for VMotion traffic in this article.

2.

Configure the PowerConnect 5316M port connected to NIC 0

on this blade to have a permanent VLAN ID (PVID) of,

for example, B—where B is the VLAN ID used for service

console traffic.

3.

Configure this port to also be member of VLAN A. At this

point, the port will forward traffic to and from VLAN A

(VMotion), and any traffic from the service console that is

untagged by the server blade will be sent only to other ports

that are members of VLAN B.

4.

Assign one external port on Switch 0 to be a member of

VLAN A. Make sure this external port’s PVID is set to 4095,

which will cause all untagged traffic to be discarded.

5.

Assign another external port on Switch 0 to be a member of

VLAN B. Make sure this external port’s PVID is set to 4095.

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At this point, external traffic will be isolated for VLAN B (the

service console) and VLAN A (VMotion) on the switch.

6.

Configure the remaining internal ports on Switch 0 connected

to the other server blades that need to participate in the

VMotion operation to be members of VLAN A. This allows

administrators to move VMs among these server blades using

VMotion.

Dedicated VMotion network configuration

In the dedicated VMotion network configuration, NIC 0 is shared

between the service console and the VMs. NIC 1 is used only for

VMotion. The steps to enable the ESX Server environment for this

configuration are identical to the steps for enabling the ESX Server

environment in the segregated traffic configuration.

Note:

For VMotion

to function properly, the switch names should be identical across

all blade servers.

Adding VLANs to the dedicated VMotion network configura-

tion can help isolate the VM traffic from the service console traffic

and thereby help improve security. To set up the VLANs in the

PowerConnect 5316M switches for this configuration, administrators

should perform the following steps:

1.

Set up virtual switches in the ESX Server software to provide

VLAN tags for all VM traffic. Administrators can define the

same VLAN tag for all VMs to share or specify a VLAN tag for

each VM or for any group of VMs. The decision for assigning

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Alternatively, if the external system does not support VLANs, then untagged traffic could be allowed into this port and the switch could automatically tag the traffic for VMotion.