Essentially I have two physical servers (Both identical, both ESXi hosts, each with 2xdual gbit nics) in a private rack in a data center. They will both be running a variety of db/web/storage server guests and each has a large redundant storage array for backing up the other's vm's for redundancy. Each machine has two uplinks (one from each NIC) to the datacenter's switch and the remaining two (again, one from each NIC) connecting them together directly, without a switch, for 3 reasons: data transport security between machines, independence from the datacenter network equipment and speed.
My question is this: How can I configure these hosts so that a guest web server on ESXi host 1 to connect to the DB server on ESXi host 2 over their private connection? Specifically what needs to be configured on the ESXi servers in order to add a new virtual NIC and assign a private IP address for internal communication with other guests.
If you need any additional detail I will be monitoring the thread closely to make updates.
Thank you!
Best Answer
On each ESXi, create a new virtual switch based on the direct connect NICs.
Using the 'Configuration' tab in vCenter on the ESXi, select 'Networking' and 'Add Networking...' Create new 'Virtual Machine' connections. Create a new virtual switch, and associate that switch with the proper NIC. Give the switch a meaningful name -- you'll need it later.
Now, in each VM that needs to talk to over the direct connection, create a new NIC (or modify an existing one), and set it's 'network label' the the switch you just created.
Assign the private IPs to those virtual NICs. Programs running in the VMs that use the private IPs you create will be routed across the direct connect.