What’s New in VMware vSphere™ 5.0

NetworkingT E C H N I C A L M A R K E T I N G D O C U M E N TAT I O Nv 1 . 0 / U p D AT E D A p R I L 2 0 1 1

What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

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Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Network Monitoring And Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

NetFlow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Port Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Network Management And Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

LLDP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Network I/O Control Enhancements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

User-Defined Network Resource Pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

VSphere Replication Traffic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

IEEE 802.1P Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

IntroductionWith the release of VMware vSphere™ 5.0 (“vSphere”), VMware brings a number of powerful new features and enhancements to the networking capabilities of the vSphere platform. These new network capabilities enable customers to run business-critical applications with confidence and provide the flexibility to enable customers to respond to business needs more rapidly. All the networking capabilities discussed in this document are available only with the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (Distributed Switch).

There are two broad types of networking capabilities that are new or enhanced in the VMware vSphere 5.0 release. The first type improves the network administrator’s ability to monitor and troubleshoot virtual infrastructure traffic by introducing features such as

•NetFlow

•Portmirror

ThesecondtypefocusesonenhancementstothenetworkI/Ocontrol(NIOC)capabilityfirstreleasedinvSphere4.1.TheseNIOCenhancementstargetthemanagementofI/OresourcesinconsolidatedI/Oenvironmentswith10GBnetworkinterfacecards.TheenhancementstoNIOCenablecustomerstoprovide end-to-end quality of service (QoS) through allocating I/O shares for user-defined traffic types as well as taggingpacketsforprioritizationbyexternalnetworkinfrastructure.ThefollowingarethekeyNIOCenhancements:

•User-definedresourcepool

•vSpherereplicationtraffictype

•IEEE802.1ptagging

The following sections will provide higher-level details on new and enhanced networking capabilities in vSphere 5.0.

Network Monitoring and TroubleshootingIn a vSphere 5.0 environment, virtual network switches provide connectivity for virtual machines running on VMware®ESXi™hoststocommunicatewitheachotheraswellasconnectivitytotheexternalphysicalinfrastructure.Networkadministratorswantmorevisibilityintothistrafficthatisflowinginthevirtualinfrastructure. This visibility will help them monitor and troubleshoot network issues. VMware vSphere 5.0 introduces two new features in the Distributed Switch that provide the required monitoring and troubleshooting capability to the virtual infrastructure.

NetFlowNetFlowisanetworkingprotocolthatcollectsIPtrafficinformationasrecordsandsendsthemtoacollectorsuchasCANetQoSfortrafficflowanalysis.VMwarevSphere5.0supportsNetFlowv5,whichisthemostcommonversionsupportedbynetworkdevices.NetFlowcapabilityinthevSphere5.0platformprovidesvisibility into virtual infrastructure traffic that includes

•Intrahostvirtualmachinetraffic(virtualmachine–to–virtualmachinetrafficonthesamehost)

•Interhostvirtualmachinetraffic(virtualmachine–to–virtualmachinetrafficondifferenthosts)

•Virtualmachine–physicalinfrastructuretraffic

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

Figure1showsaDistributedSwitchconfiguredtosendNetFlowrecordstoacollectorthatisconnectedtoanexternalnetworkswitch.ThebluedottedlinewitharrowindicatestheNetFlowsessionthatisestablishedtosend flow records for the collector to analyze.

PhysicalSwitch

Trunk

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VMA VMB

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APPOS

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Figure 1. NetFlow Traffic

UsageNetFlowcapabilityonaDistributedSwitchalongwithaNetFlowcollectortoolhelpsmonitorapplicationflowsand measures flow performance over time. It also helps in capacity planning and ensuring that I/O resources are utilizedproperlybydifferentapplications,basedontheirneeds.

IT administrators who want to monitor the performance of application flows running in the virtualized environment can enable flow monitoring on a Distributed Switch.

ConfigurationNetFlowonDistributedSwitchescanbeenabledattheportgrouplevel,atanindividualportlevelorattheuplinklevel.WhenconfiguringNetFlowattheportlevel,administratorsshouldselecttheNetFlowoverridetab,whichwillmakesurethatflowsaremonitoredeveniftheportgroup–levelNetFlowisdisabled.

Port MirrorPortmirroringisthecapabilityonanetworkswitchtosendacopyofnetworkpacketsseenonaswitchporttoanetworkmonitoringdeviceconnectedtoanotherswitchport.PortmirroringisalsoreferredtoasSwitchPortAnalyzer(SPAN)onCiscoswitches.InVMwarevSphere5.0,aDistributedSwitchprovidesasimilarportmirroring capability to that available on a physical network switch. After a port mirror session is configured with a destination—a virtual machine, a vmknic or an uplink port—the Distributed Switch copies packets to the destination.Portmirroringprovidesvisibilityinto

•Intrahostvirtualmachinetraffic(virtualmachine–to–virtualmachinetrafficonthesamehost)

•Interhostvirtualmachinetraffic(virtualmachine–to–virtualmachinetrafficondifferenthosts)

Figure2showsdifferenttypesoftrafficflowsthatcanbemonitoredwhenavirtualmachineonahostactsasadestination or monitoring device. All traffic shown by the orange dotted line with arrow is mirrored traffic that is sent to the destination virtual machine.

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

IngressSource Destination

Legend

Mirror Flow

Virtual Machine Trac

VDS

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InterhostVirtual MachineTrac

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ExternalSystem

ExternalSystemDestination

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Figure 2. Port Mirror Traffic Flows When Destination Where Packets Are Mirrored Is a Virtual Machine

UsageThe port mirroring capability on a Distributed Switch is a valuable tool that helps network administrators in debugging network issues in a virtual infrastructure. The granular control over monitoring ingress, egress or all traffic of a port helps administrators fine-tune what traffic is sent for analysis.

ConfigurationPortmirrorconfigurationcanbedoneattheDistributedSwitchlevel,whereanetworkadministratorcancreatea port mirror session by identifying the traffic source that needs monitoring and the traffic destination where the traffic will be mirrored. The traffic source can be any port with ingress, egress or all traffic selected. The traffic destination can be any virtual machine, vmknic or uplink port.

Network Management and ConfigurationThenumberofnetworkdevices,virtualandphysical,inadatacenterisincreasing.ForanetworkorITadministrator, it becomes difficult to manually configure and monitor each of these devices. In such complex environments, with a large number of devices, configuration-related mistakes are very difficult to rectify. To solvethisconfigurationproblem,CiscointroducedCiscoDiscoveryProtocol(CDP).TheVMwarevSphereplatformsupportedthisprotocolandhelpedsimplifyandautomatetheconfigurationprocesswithCisconetwork infrastructure.

WiththereleaseofvSphere5.0,VMwarenowsupportsIEEE802.1ABstandard–basedLinkLayerDiscoveryProtocol(LLDP).LLDPhelpsmanagementandconfigurationofheterogeneousnetworkdevicesfromdifferentvendors.

LLDPDiscoveryprotocolisadatalinklayerprotocolusedtodiscovercapabilitiesofnetworkdevices.LLDPisastandard-based(IEEE802.1AB),vendor-neutraldiscoveryprotocol.

Usage

LLDPenablesadministratorstoautomatethedeploymentandconfigurationprocessinacomplexnetwork-switching environment. It also helps avoid downtime due to misconfiguration of network devices.

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

ConfigurationThisfeaturecanbeenabledattheDistributedSwitchlevelbyselectingeithertheCDPorLLDPdiscoveryprotocoltype.Customersalsocanchoosethemodeofoperationforthediscoveryprotocolfromthefollowingthree options:

•Listen

•Advertise

•Both

Figure 3. LLDP Configuration

Network I/O Control EnhancementsConsolidatedI/OorI/Ovirtualizationdeliverssimilarbenefitsasprovidedbyx86virtualizationintermsofbetterutilization and consolidation of resources. However, as multiple traffic types flow through a single physical networkinterface,itbecomesimportanttomanagethetrafficeffectivelysuchthatcriticalapplicationflowsdon’tsufferbecauseofaburstoflow-prioritytraffic.NetworktrafficmanagementprovidestherequiredcontrolandguaranteetodifferenttraffictypesintheconsolidatedI/Oenvironment.IntheVMwarevSphere5.0platform,NIOCsupportstrafficmanagementcapabilitiesforthefollowingtraffictypes:

•Virtualmachinetraffic

•Managementtraffic

•iSCSItraffic

•NFStraffic

•Fault-toleranttraffic

•VMwarevMotion™traffic

•User-definedtraffic

•vSpherereplicationtraffic

SimilartoCPUandmemoryresourceallocationinthevSphereplatform,anetworkadministratorthroughNIOCcanallocateI/Osharesandlimitstodifferenttraffictypes,basedontheirrequirements.InthisnewreleaseofvSphere,NIOCcapabilitiesareenhancedsuchthatadministratorscannowcreateuser-definedtraffictypesand

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

allocate shares and limits to them. Also, administrators can provide I/O resources to the vSphere replication process by assigning shares to vSphere replication traffic types. The following section describes in detail the two new traffic types introduced in vSphere 5.0.

User-Defined Network Resource PoolsUser-definednetworkresourcepoolsinvSphere5.0provideanabilitytoaddnewtraffictypesbeyondthestandard system traffic types that are used for I/O scheduling.

Figure4showsanexampleofauser-definedresourcepoolwithshares,limitsandIEEE802.1ptagparametersdescribedinatable.Inthisexample,Tenant1andTenant2aretwouser-definedresourcepoolswithvirtualmachines connected to their respective independent port groups. Tenant 1, with three virtual machines, has five I/Oshares.Tenant2,withonevirtualmachine,has15I/Oshares.Thisindicatesthatduringcontentionscenarios,Tenant2virtualmachineswillhaveahigherguaranteedsharethanTenant1virtualmachines.

VM VMVM VM

VM VMVM VM

VM VMVM VM

VM VMVM VM

Tenant 1

Virtual Machines

vSphere Distributed Switch

vSphere Distributed Port Group

Teaming Policy

Scheduler Scheduler

Shares Enforcementper Uplink

Limit Enforcementper Team

Load-BasedTeamingShaper

Tra�c Shares Limit (Mbps) 802.1p

vMotion 5

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Figure 4. NIOC User-Defined Resource Pools: Tenant 1 and Tenant 2

UsageWhen customers are deploying critical applications on virtual infrastructure, they can utilize this advanced featuretoreserveI/Oresourcesfortheimportant,business-criticalapplicationtrafficandprovideSLAguarantees.

Service providers who are deploying public clouds and serving multiple tenants can now define and provision I/O resources per tenant, based on each tenant’s need.

ConfigurationThe new resource pools can be defined at the Distributed Switch level by selecting the resource allocation tab and clicking on new network resource pools. After a new network resource pool is defined with shares and limits parameters, that resource pool can be associated with a port group. This association of a network resource pool with a port group enables customers to allocate I/O resources to a group of virtual machines or workloads.

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What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

vSphere Replication TrafficvSphere replication is a new system traffic type that carries replication traffic from one host to another. NIOCnowsupportsthisnewtraffictypealongwithothersystemanduser-definedtraffictypes.

UsageCustomersimplementingadisasterrecovery(DR)solutionwithVMwarevCenterSiteRecoveryManager (SiteRecoveryManager)andvSpherereplicationcanusethisvSpherereplicationtraffictypetoproviderequired network resources to the replication process.

ConfigurationA vSphere replication traffic type can be configured on a Distributed Switch under the resource allocation tab. Thistraffictypeisnowpartofthesystemnetworkresourcepool.Customerscanallocatesharesandlimitsparameters to this traffic type.

IEEE 802.1p TaggingIEEE802.1pisastandardforenablingQoSatMAClevel.TheIEEE802.1ptagprovidesa3-bitfieldforprioritization,whichallowspacketstobegroupedintosevendifferenttrafficclasses.TheIEEEdoesn’tmandateor standardize the use of recommended traffic classes. However, higher-number tags typically indicate critical trafficthathashigherpriority.Thetrafficissimplyclassifiedatthesourceandsenttothedestination.Thelayer-2switch infrastructure between the source and destination handles the traffic classes according to the assigned priority. In the vSphere 5.0 release, network administrators now can tag the packets going out of the host.

UsageCustomerswhoaredeployingbusiness-criticalapplicationsinavirtualizedenvironmentnowhavethecapabilityto guarantee I/O resources to these workloads on the host. However, it is not sufficient to provide I/O resources justonthehost.Customersmustthinkabouthowtoprovideend-to-endQoStothebusiness-criticalapplicationtraffic.ThecapabilityofaDistributedSwitchtoprovideanIEEE802.1ptaghelpssuchcustomersmeetthoserequirements for end-to-end QoS or service-level agreements.

ConfigurationIEEE802.1ptaggingcanbeenabledpertraffictype.CustomerscanselecttheDistributedSwitchandthentheresourceallocationtabtoseethedifferenttraffictypes,includingsystemanduser-definedtraffictypes.Afterselectingatraffictype,theusercanedittheQoSprioritytagfieldbychoosinganynumberfrom1to7.Figure5is the screenshot of QoS priority tag configuration for the MyVMTraffic traffic type.

Figure 5. Configured QoS Priority for User-Defined MyVMTraffic Resource Pool

What’s New in VMware vSphere 5.0Networking

vMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www .vmware .comCopyright © 2011 VMware, Inc . All rights reserved . This product is protected by U .S . and international copyright and intellectual property laws . VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www .vmware .com/go/patents . VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc . in the United States and/or other jurisdictions . All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies . Item No: VMW-TWP-vSPHR-NETWORKING5 .0-USLET-101

ConclusionThe VMware vSphere 5.0 release builds on the advanced networking features supported in vSphere 4.1. The new and enhanced features in vSphere 5.0 provide additional tools and capabilities that will simplify the lives of networkadministratorsandprovidemoreflexibilityindeployingacloudinfrastructure.FeaturessuchasNetFlowandportmirrorprovidenetworkadministratorswithavisibilityintovirtualinfrastructuretrafficthroughthefamiliartoolsandprotocols.EnhancednetworkI/OcontrolhelpscustomersmanageI/Oresourcepools,based on workload and system resource demand, and also provides end-to-end service-level agreements for critical applications.