HCI standard networking topology is as follows.

Explanation of terms:

1. The management network to reuse the management network for platform management, server IPMI, BMC, IDRAC, and other remote management network interfaces.

2. VXLAN network carries the east-west traffic of virtual machines and layer-2 communication.
3. A storage network is for aSAN storage, responsible for storage data communication between HCI nodes; When using IPSAN, it also serves as an interface for communication with external storage, layer-2 communication. Storage area networks can use RDMA for internal communication, which reduces latency and improves storage performance.
4. The service network carries the North-South communication of virtual machines.

Networking Description:

1. Core layer

Using the data center core switch with high-capacity network message forwarding capability is recommended. The switch model is required to support stacking or clustering technology, and the downlink port rate is 10GE.

2. Access layer

In the large-scale deployment scenario, it is recommended that the management, service, and VXLAN network planes adopt two stacking technology-supported switches(Gigabyte) data centers. The GE rate downlink connects to the server, and the uplink port rate is 10GE. Multiple 10GE links access the core switch using link aggregation to build a redundant, low convergence ratio and non-blocking service switching network. The storage network adopts two independent 10 Gigabit switches to do link aggregation with two switches to ensure Virtual Storage performance and improve the robustness of the whole network architecture. During deployment, the two hosts are aggregated and directly connected, and dual switch link aggregation should be selected.

In the small-scale deployment scenario, two stacked data center switches(Gigabyte) are recommended in the management, service, and VXLAN network planes. Each network plane is divided into different VLANs for logical reasons of isolation. The storage network also adopts two independent 10 Gigabit switches and dual switch links to ensure Virtual Storage performance and improve the robustness of the whole network architecture.

When the server is configured with 6 * GE and 2 * 10GE network ports, the management, business and VXLAN networks adopt 2 * GE network ports respectively, and the network ports are aggregated and bound; The storage network adopts 2 * 10GE network port and dual switch link to increase network redundancy and transmission bandwidth

For the management, service, and VXLAN network planes, the server network card aggregation supports three load balancing modes: IP, MAC address, and polling. It is recommended to use the IP mode for load balancing. The access layer switch interface needs to be configured with the corresponding interface aggregation mode. If the incoming switch is a Cisco switch, configure mode on to connect with the underlying aggregation NIC. For storage independent dual switches, configure access VLAN 1 on the switch port that maintains the storage connection.

In addition, since the HCI cannot perceive the cabinets, it is recommended to use the deployment mode of dual machines and dual cabinets as much as possible during HCI deployment. Stacked dual switches are placed in two cabinets, and servers in a single cluster are recommended to be placed in more than two cabinets.