Create and configure vSphere Distributed Switches to manage the infrastructure and VM traffic on the management cluster.

Prerequisites

Ensure that the management vCenter instance is installed and running.

Procedure

  1. In the management data center TCP_MGMT_DC, create a vSphere distributed switch TCP_MGMT_INFRA_VDS to use as the infrastructure vSphere Distributed Switch. For more information, see Create a vSphere Distributed Switch.
    Note:

    Ensure that the Jumbo frame value for MTU is set to 9000.

  2. Add two uplink ports to the infrastructure vSphere Distributed Switch.
  3. Add ESXi hosts ESXi_MGMT_01 through ESXi_MGMT_04 to the distributed switch by connecting two physical NICs from each host to the switch.
  4. Configure VMkernel networking.
    1. Create the following port groups on the distributed switch TCP_MGMT_INFRA_VDS and set the traffic types.

      Port Group

      Sample VLAN ID

      ESXi Management

      100

      vMotion Network

      200

      vSAN Network

      300

      NFS Network

      400

      Replication Network

      500
    2. Migrate the management VMkernel adapter of each host to the ESXi Management port group.
    3. Create VMkernel adapters on each host for different traffic types.

      • Set the traffic type of each adapter to an infrastructure traffic type, for example, vMotion traffic and vSAN traffic.

      • Associate each adapter with a dedicated port group. For example, associate the vMotion adapter with the vMotion port group.

  5. Create a distributed switch named TCP_MGMT_TENANT_VDS to use as the tenant vSphere Distributed Switch.
  6. Add two uplink ports to the tenant vSphere Distributed Switch.
  7. Add ESXi hosts ESXi_MGMT_01 through ESXi_MGMT_04 to the distributed switch.
  8. Connect the remaining two physical Ethernet ports from each ESXi host to the uplinks on TCP_MGMT_TENANT_VDS.
  9. Configure VM networking:
    1. Create the following port groups on the distributed switch TCP_MGMT_TENANT_VDS and set the traffic types.

      Port Group

      VLAN ID

      VM Management Network

      10

      vCenter HA Network

      20

      External Network

      30

      Backup Network

      40
    2. Migrate the VM network from the Standard switch to Tenant VDS.
    3. Connect the VM of the vCenter system TCP_MGMT_VC to the VM Management Network port group (VLAN 10).
  10. Verify that you can log in to TCP_MGMT_VC and the connectivity status of all ESXi hosts in the management cluster.
  11. (Optional) Mount the NFS datastore to all the management cluster hosts if you want to use the NFS Datastore.

What to do next

After configuring the vSphere distributed switch, verify the following.

  • Two distributed switches are visible in each ESXi host in the management cluster.

  • All four Ethernet ports of the ESXi host are connected to uplink ports on the distributed switches.

  • ESXi hosts are in Connected state.

  • vSphere vMotion is working. Verify it by migrating any test VMs.

  • vSAN network connectivity between the hosts by pinging the vSAN VMkernel adapter from one ESXi host to other hosts. Use the following command to ping the vSAN VMkernel adapter:

    vmkping -I vmk<VMkernel number><ip address of another host configured with vSAN VMkernel port group>

  • VMkernel adapters are created for each ESXi host, and the traffic services are enabled.

  • vCenter is accessible after the network migration from vSphere Standard Switch (vSS) to vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS).