I'm building a lab setup using 2-3 HP servers as vmware ESXi hosts and another server as a FreeNAS machine to provide storage for vmWare.
I have a few dual port 10Gb nics and a bunch of DAC cables available, but no 10Gb capable switch. 10Gb switches are still quite expensive, so i would like to avoid buying one. So my thoughts were.. What if i can bridge those 10Gb ports on the FreeNAS server ? and hookup both vmware boxes to the FreeNAS box with DAC cables. Most traffic will be between the NAS en the ESXi hosts anyway.. just a little heartbeat traffic etc between the esxi hosts.
Bridging on vmware won't work.. vmware vswitches will not switch/bridge between outside connections. But will it work if i bridge the nics on FreeNAS and assign a single IP to the bridge?
I can assign dedicated 1:1 links between FreeNAS and the individual ESXi hosts but i dont think vmware can work with that and still see the storage as shared storage?
(i would like to use both iSCSI and NFS)
Anyone ever tried this?
I have a few dual port 10Gb nics and a bunch of DAC cables available, but no 10Gb capable switch. 10Gb switches are still quite expensive, so i would like to avoid buying one. So my thoughts were.. What if i can bridge those 10Gb ports on the FreeNAS server ? and hookup both vmware boxes to the FreeNAS box with DAC cables. Most traffic will be between the NAS en the ESXi hosts anyway.. just a little heartbeat traffic etc between the esxi hosts.
Bridging on vmware won't work.. vmware vswitches will not switch/bridge between outside connections. But will it work if i bridge the nics on FreeNAS and assign a single IP to the bridge?
I can assign dedicated 1:1 links between FreeNAS and the individual ESXi hosts but i dont think vmware can work with that and still see the storage as shared storage?
(i would like to use both iSCSI and NFS)
Anyone ever tried this?
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