Hi,

_VirtualCenter VMotion Requirements_

If you wish to have VirtualCenter perform a migration with VMotion of

your virtual machines, you must also have and activate the

VirtualCenter VMotion Module. You must activate each host. Activation

requires a specific VMotion license for each host. The only hosts

supported at this time are ESX Server hosts.

_ <span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller"><span class="smaller">VMotion requires a Gigabit Ethernet network between virtual machines._

VMotion requires the setup of a private, Gigabit Ethernet migration

network between all of the VMotion-enabled hosts. When VMotion is

enabled on a host, configure a unique network identity object for the

host and connect it to the private migration network.

The VMotion network has its own IP and is owned by the VMkernel, hence is different from the VM NIC. It is normally a seperate network from all other communication and only has VMotion

traffic travel upon it, however you can if you choose have this running

over the production network as well. All nodes that you VMotion between must be on the same subnet and have visibility to the LUN that the VMDKs of the VM are running on.

VMware recommends using VirtualCenter and Virtual Infrastructure Client (VI Client)

Two VLANs:

VLAN48 - iSCSI Network - 172.16.48.0, 255.255.255.240VLAN200 - vMotion - 172.16.200.0, 255.255.255.248When I click on the Host and click Configurationtab, I click Networking and then "Add vMotion

NIC/IP once I complete the wizard...but if I click the edit box and

change the VMkernel Def Gateway to 172.16.200.1, I believe I will lose

connectivity to the Service Console/Host machine. (On my last config,

when I changed this setting to 200.1, my config got hosed and I had to

re-format and re-install. I'd prefer not to do this )

In all documentation/best practice reading that I've done, it states that the vMotion

Enable VMotion on the vmkernel interface by commandline

To

fully automate an installation of ESX server 3.5 certain esxcfg-

commands needs to be used. However these commands doesnt allow us to

enable VMotion on a vmkernel interface. To do this in a command line

use the vimsh command.

Before enabling VMotion create the neccesary virtual switches

and vmkernel interfaces using esxcfg-vswitch and esxcfg-vmknic commands

Examples:

To create a new vswitch called vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch10

To link a vmnic to vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic1 vSwitch10

To create a portgroup called VMotion on vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -A VMotion vSwitch10

To create the vmkernel interface on the VMotion portgroup do:

• esxcfg-vmknic -a -i 10.0.0.1 -n 255.255.255.0 VMotion

To enable that interface as the VMotion interface. First thing we

need to know is the interface name of the vmkernel port. To find that

do:

• esxcfg-vmknic -l

This lists all the vmkernel interfaces that is created on the ESX

host. Its likely that its called vmk0 because its probably the first

vmkernel interface created

Now Enable the vmkernel interface to used by VMotion do this:

• vimsh -n -e “/hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_set vmk0?

All done. Now verify in the VirtualCenter client that your vmkernel interface now is enabled for VMotion.

Note: The vimsh command does only work in ESX 3.5 and not 3i

unfortunately as 3i doenst have a service console. To use esxcfg-

commands with 3i install the VMware Infrastructure RCLI Tool created by VMware.

Regards.

Edgardo Morgan