FlexFabric and VMwares vDS NETIOC

[rogocolo2010]

This external article out about VMware's NETIOC capabilities in their vDS.

http://geeksilver.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/vmware-vsphere-4-1-network-io-control-netioc-understanding/

I would be interested to see how the HP FlexFabric product team see this native VMware QoS capability in the vDS product. How is this enablment weaved into the FlexFabric capability to enhance the traffic cop facility of I/O traffic in vSphere on HP Blades.

It seems to me that this would nullify the Cisco banter of QoS enablement in vSphere somewhat that has transcended  in certain quarters and shouts for the use of Nexus 1000v. Would like to hear the prespective of others on this topic.

Thanks

[chuckk281]

I will see what our experts think as well.

[chuckk281]

I found this info in one of our deployment guides:

Best practices for deploying VMware vSphere 4.1 on HP ProLiant DL980 G7 servers

Increasing network bandwidth

VMware introduced Network I/O Control (NetIOC) capabilities with vSphere 4.1. NetIOC delivers the following key capabilities:

 All network traffic shares the same physical adapter

 You specify how bandwidth is apportioned between the various traffic types

In addition, NetIOC allows you to take advantage of 10 Gb connectivity, which increases the number of concurrent vMotion migrations you can perform from four (for a 1 Gb network) to eight.

NetIOC overview

NetIOC is configured in conjunction with the network switch (vDS) to isolate and prioritize network traffic.

Rather than employing a fixed bandwidth for each type of traffic, NetIOC allocates a specified share of the server’s physical network resources to each. For example, you can assign a higher share of the bandwidth to vMotion traffic than to management traffic. Furthermore, you can increase the total bandwidth available by upgrading the 1 Gb ports provided by the DL980 G7 to 10 Gb.

To me that does not define true QoS capabilities as I understand it. Network traffic is categorized and then assigned a portion of the available network bandwidth. True QoS will infact interrupt lower priority traffic with higher priority traffic.

My opinion.

[DerekS_1]

But FlexFabric has no hardware QoS support, right? Personally I'd KISS the solution; Dispense with FlexNICs and present two 10Gb pipes to your ESX server (if you don't need FC). Then use ESX controls like NetIOC to control bandwidth, or also use with the Nexus 1000v for some type of QoS support. But without FlexFabric supporting hardware QoS, there's limited value in marking packets with QoS since they are ignored and just passed upstream.

If you need FC, then dedicate say 3Gb per FlexNIC to FC and 7Gb to ESX.