My ESXi hosts are connected to two switches as described in figure 1.
When i configure the Load-Balancing method of the trunks to "IP-Hash" the virtual hosts are flapping in between the portchannel-groups:
21-07-2017 09:00:45 Warning (4) SW_MATM-4-MACFLAP_NOTIF Host 0050.5688.1141 in vlan 60 is flapping between port Po1 and port Po3
If the trunks are configured to load-balance by src-MAC the virtual host is not flapping anymore. But i don't get the benefits of the IP-Hash load-balancing method.
Does anyone know how great the performance-loss is due to the MAC-flapping?
Backup-Question: Is there a "supported" way to connect two switches to two esxi-hosts (VMware ESXi 6.5) without VDS?
Best Answer
The answer to the second question is simple. No, there is no supported way to connect one ESXi-Host to two Switches: KB1001938:
The first answer is a bit more tricky... It depends... In my tests, the VM was flapping only a few times, so there was absolutley no increase in the cpu usage of the switch. But as described here, this can be an issue when the mac table alters quickly.