Specifications

HP Virtual Connect for Cisco Network Administrators (version 1.2x) page 31
NIC ports are assigned to the same vSwitch on the ESX server. This allows the vSwitch to use either
NIC port to reach any of the VLANs over an active 2 Gb logical path. VLANs 2 thru 4 are
represented within this VC domain by two active 2 Gb port channels for a total of 4 Gb.
Figure 14. VC Domain Showing Advanced Usage of Shared Uplink Sets, EtherChannel, and Tagged Server NICs
(see Appendix A for a description of the elements in the above diagram)
There are many reasons why an administrator may want to create multiple vNets to represent the
same external VLAN:
• To apply specific port security, QoS, ACLs, Private VLANs, etc. settings on the Cisco switch
ports connected to the uplinks for a specific vNet.
o The settings need to be applied to some, but not all, of the blade servers on that
VLAN, therefore, multiple vNets are used to group together servers requiring the same
settings.
• To provide an Active\Active VC uplink configuration to the same external VLAN or VLAN
trunk.
o VC prevents loops on the network by only allowing a vNet to only have one active
logical path at any given time. Utilizing multiple vNets for the same VLAN provides
multiple active VC uplinks for the same VLAN while still preventing loops on the
network
o Servers can be divided among the multiple vNets or servers can be dual homed to
multiple vNets using NIC Teaming