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3273
April 8th, 2019 04:00
Join external ESXi host to VXrail vmware default Vmware Distributed vswitch
Hello everyone,
I'm sure this question can be little bit strange, but want to know if it possible.
I have a vxrail cluster with 8x10Gb network, 4 of them are configured in the default dvswitch deployed by the initial setup for (Vsan, Vmotion, Management, networking).
I would like to add 2 others servers, not vxrail nodes, in a new Vmware cluster but my idea it's to keep DVswitch to get the same network configuration.
Technically it's possible, but just don't want to block the next vxrail upgrade if it's not supported.
Thanks,
Julien.
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Dee Abson
3 Posts
1
April 23rd, 2019 09:00
As a customer myself, I don't know whether this is officially supported. Most likely not.
From a compatibility standpoint, I'd avoid that shared vDS scenario. If you're interested in following the VMware Validated Designs, each cluster (workload domain) has its own vDS as well. This will also potentially introduce complexity during cluster upgrades if your VxRail nodes and non-VxRail hosts end up with differing vSphere versions (ex. 6.0 vs 6.5 vs 6.7) as that can limit your ability to upgrade the vDS version.
The only benefit I see in sharing a vDS in this way is to try to save a bit of time in provisioning new port groups on the vDS's. If your practice is to make port groups available to all clusters when, say, you add a new VLAN, then you wouldn't have to add two port groups with the same VLAN ID on two different VDS's. I would hope that this activity is infrequent enough that you're not doing this often, say every month. If you do find yourself doing this semi-regularly, then I'd recommend using PowerCLI to provision new port groups on as many vDS's as you need in one go. That should give you the efficiency without compromising compatibility or upgrade options.