VCP6vHerseyVITAVMware

VCP6-DCV Delta Study – Section 2 – Objective 2.2

This post covers Section 2, Configure and Administer Advanced vSphere Networking, Objective 2.2, Configure Network I/O Control (NIOC).

The vSphere Knowledge covered in this objective:

  • Identify Network I/O Control requirements
  • Identify Network I/O Control capabilities
  • Enable/Disable Network I/O Control
  • Monitor Network I/O Control

Objective 2.1 VMware Resources and Tools include:


-Identify Network I/O Control requirements
vSphere Network I/O Control in the vSphere Networking Guide on page 157.

NIOC Features in Performance Evaluation of Network I/O Control in VMware vSphere 6 page 4.

  • NIOC can only be enabled on a vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS).
  • NIOC equires vSphere Distributed Switch 5.1 or later.
  • NIOC version 3 requires vDS 6.0.
  • NIOC version 3 can provide reservations of network bandwidth.
  • Version 2 and version 3 of the Network I/O Control can coexist.
  • SR-IOV is not available for virtual machines configured to use Network I/O Control version 3.
  • Bandwidth shares, reservation, and limit per VM vNIC.
  • Load balancing of VMs by DRS during VM power on. This DRS feature will take into account network bandwidth reservations in addition to CPU and memory reservations while recommending which host a VM should be powered on.
  • Load balancing of powered on VMs when bandwidth reservations are violated.

– Identify Network I/O Control capabilities
Network I/O Control continuously monitors the I/O load over the network and dynamically allocates available resources.

Network I/O Control version 3 allocates bandwidth based on:

  • Shares
    Relative priority of traffic during contention. NIOC applies the configured shares when a physical adapter is saturated.
  • Reservation
    Minimum bandwidth in Mbps
  • Limit
    Maximum bandwidth in Mbps or Gbps

Network I/O Control can enabled on a distribute switch to allocate bandwidth for vSphere services and virtual machine networking.

Web Client -> Networking -> vDS -> Manage -> Resource Allocation -> System traffic
Traffic allocation for vSphere system services:

  • Management – Default 50 Shares
  • Fault Tolerance – Default 50 Shares
  • iSCSI – Default 50 Shares
  • NFS – Default 50 Shares
  • Virtual SAN – Default 50 Shares
  • vMotion – Default 50 Shares
  • vSphere Replication – Default 50 Shares
  • vSphere Data Protection Backup – Default 50 Shares
  • Virtual machine – Default 100 Shares

By default no reservations or limits are set on System traffic.
nioc-system-services
The total bandwidth reserved among all system traffic types cannot exceed 75 percent of the bandwidth that the physical network adapter with the lowest capacity can provide.

Bandwidth Allocation Parameters for System Traffic in the vSphere Networking Guide on page 162.

Version 3 of Network I/O Control allows you configure bandwidth requirements for individual virtual machines.
nioc-vm
Bandwidth Allocation for Virtual Machine Traffic in the vSphere Networking Guide on page 164.

– Enable/Disable Network I/O Control
Enable Network I/O Control on a vSphere Distributed Switch in the vSphere Networking Guide on page 160.

NIOC is enabled on a vDS.
nioc-enable

Network Resource Pools can be created and assigned to port groups.
apply-nioc-pool-pg
Create a Network Resource Pool in the vSphere Networking Guide on page 168.

– Monitor Network I/O Control
NIOC can be monitored in the Web Client -> Networking -> vDS -> Manage -> Resource Allocation

System Traffic:

  • Network I/O Control Status (Enabled/Disabled)
  • Version
  • Physical network adapters
  • Minimum link speed
  • Total bandwidth Capacity
  • Maximum reservation allowed
  • Configured reservation
  • Available bandwidth

monitor-system-nioc
Network resource pools:

  • Configured reservation
  • Granted quota
  • Unused quota
  • Bandwidth capacity
  • Virtual machine traffic reservation

monitor-pool-nioc


More Section Objectives in the VCP6-DCV Delta Exam Study Guide Index

I hope you found this helpful. Feel free to add anything associated with this section using the comments below. Happy studying.

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