Multi ESX Cluster - 1000v

[sterdnotshaken]

Hey there,

Would someone be so kind as to answer these questions:

- Can a single pair of VSM's be used to control VEM's in separate ESX clusters? Or do we need to install unique VSM's on a per cluster basis? Is there a design recommendation? It seems wise to have unique VSM's to facilitate future upgrades while not effecting other ESX network connectivity...

- I had heard that you can't have more than 1 pair of VSM's register to the same VCenter Server? Can you have multiple VSM's register with the same VCenter Server?

I appreciate the help!

[mwronkow]

A pair of VSMs can control up to 64 ESX hosts across multiple clusters in the same vSphere Datacenter.  The VSM pair cannot control hosts in different datacenters. Multiple VSM pairs may be registered to the same vcenter server and even same datacenter.  However, a host can only belong to one N1k dvs at a time.

Matthew

[sterdnotshaken]

Hey Matthew,

Thank you very much for answering my question so quickly! So you are sure I can have more then one set of VSM's register to the same VCenter server? I am told that you can't... Could you confirm this?

Also, is it best design practice to have, if I don't need inter-cluster distributed switch functionality, to have one distributed 1 switch per cluster?

Thanks!

[sterdnotshaken]

by the way, we are running VMWare 5.0...

Thanks.

[mwronkow · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Multiple VSMs to the same vCenter is a fully supported configuration.  Many customers have this topology, our TAC lab & sessions at CiscoLive! have all used it.

There isn't a best practice for spanning clusters with the same N1k. Some customers use a different VSM per cluster, while others use the same VSMs for many clusters.  If you choose to span multiple clusters, you can have differnet network configurations in each cluster by using multiple sets of port-profiles.

Matthew

[sterdnotshaken]

Thanks for validating that Matthew, I really appreciate your help!