I have been given a new host that is running VMware ESXi 4.1u3 (licensed) with 6 NIC ports (not including 2 that are dedicated to iLO). There are 2 available SAN's to connect to and utilize. This will run about 20 VM's at the most for the time being.
I am having trouble deciding how to utilize these ports, can someone please help me or recommend what is the best practice on using these? I am relatively new to the VMware Networking aspect of things.
Couple of questions that come to mind...
- Should the SAN Network be on a separated vSwitch from the Data and Management networks?
- When I create a Management Network (to allow us to manage the VMware Host), does this get a dedicated port? Or does it just get placed on the same vSwitch on the Data Network?
- Should the Management Network vmKernel be untagged or tagged on the VLAN specific to the Management Network?
- How do I determine when to use separate vSwitches?