How many vlans on 1 cable are too much

[thediscountgeeks]

i have 6 vlans on 1 cat5e cable running to 1 port on my esxi server which hosts about 25 servers.  these servers are not run very hard, atleast not all at once.  Is this going to give me trouble or can I continue to run it like this?

firepower 1010 is managing the vlans

catalyst 2960 for the switch

Thanks

[Flavio Miranda]

Hi

 Best adivise is to you to check on the interface and see if it is ok or not.  You can use 'show interface' and look 'txload' and 'rxload'. If this valeu is low then you are good, if high then you are not.

  Usually dont metter how many vlan but how much traffic is being generated on the vlan.

[Martin L]

6 vlans is not too much or too many at all.  it is more about interface speed, type of traffic and amount of traffic rather then number of vlans.  catalyst 2960 switch should have Gig ports if so, use them,. you can also bundle ports into a Etherchannel (aka port channel) if you have multiple NICs on esxi server. 

Regards, ML
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[thediscountgeeks]

I only have one network jack in the room with the esxi server so ether
channel wouldn’t be an option,

I will run it all on the same canle, thank for the input!

[Joseph W. Doherty · Accepted solution]

it's not number of VLANs, per se, but volume and nature of the traffic that matters.

Basically, the question to ask, are network applications being adversely impacted by lack of bandwidth?

The answer might be yes if even only one VLAN or no if a thousand VLANs.  The converse possible too.  I.e. Martin mentions six VLANs aren't too many, but again, even one VLAN might be more than a specific interface can support.

Martin also mentioned the possibility of using Etherchannel bundles, but they have their own "gotchas", beyond often being a good way to improve/provide additional redundancy.

Flavio mentions if interface shows low loading, all's good, but if high loading, then all's not good.  Unfortunately, although often true, there are many times when that's not true too.

So, to your question "Is this going to give me trouble or can I continue to run it like this?", there's insufficient information to say, especially looking forward.