ONTAP Select - Network Configuration - ESX Host NICs

[biks]

Hi, we planned to deploy two new ONTAP Select two node HA between two sites with snapmirror replication.

We checked the physical NICs on ESX hosts from the customer and we noticed that all are used.

My question is :

Can we use the existing NICs on each ESX hosts to deploy the ONTAP Select nodes or we need to use dedicated NICs just for ONTAP Select nodes ?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Michael

[elementx]

The docs are clear, no dedicated physical NICs.

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-select/concept_nw_single_multi_node.html#multinode-network-configuration

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-select/concept_nw_supported_configs.html

https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-select/reference_plan_ots_networking.html

Also in the MetroCluster SDS section (https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-select/concept_ha_config.html#two-node-ha-versus-two-node-stretched-ha-metrocluster-sds):

"The MetroCluster SDS does not require dedicated hardware. However, the environment should adhere to requirements for latency (a maximum of 5ms for RTT and 5ms for jitter, for a total of 10ms) and physical distance (a maximum of 10km)."

[biks]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry but I'm little bit confused. When I read this documentation https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-select/pdfs/fullsite-sidebar/ONTAP_Select_documentation.pdf

Page 35 Summary of Best Practices --> Define dedicated network ports, bandwidth, and vSwitch configurations for the ONTAP Select networks and external storage...

As it's a best practice, that mean it is not mandatory ? What do you think ?

[elementx · Accepted solution]

I think it's a best practice to have own ports groups and reserved bandwidth, but vSwitch could be existing. 

If your network configuration is configured in a way that cannot be used (I don't know that would that be - maybe connected to a switch with MTU 1400 or VMNICs in LACP are not in a single LAG?) then you may need a new vSwitch/NICs, but h/w does not need to be dedicated to ONTAP.

[elementx]

By the way, (most) NetApp HCI Compute Nodes have/had 4 NICs per system, two are used for iSCSI, two for the rest (Management, vMotion, VM Network, etc.) and we've deployed ONTAP Select MetroCluster SDS on it for customers. 

This is a bit dated (2020) but still not outdated. You can see some screenshots and steps used to deploy it without dedicated physical NICs. 

https://www.netapp.com/media/17107-tr4669.pdf