IBM Partner Pavilion BMD00082 manual Virtual Switch Groups Membership, Assigning Ports to VSGs

SmartConnect User’s Guide

Virtual Switch Groups Membership

Use this window to group ports or virtual machines into VSGs.

Assigning Ports to VSGs

Choose menu Virtual Switch Groups > Membership to select the VSG in the Group drop- down list for each of the external ports and internal server blade ports. Also in this configura- tion window, external ports can be assigned to a VSG trunk. Click Apply to make your changes active, and Save to retain changes beyond reboot.

To enable Layer 2 Failover, Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP), or IGMP Snooping for the VSG, choose menu Virtual Switch Groups > Settings.

Assigning Virtual Machines to VSGs

Choose menu Virtual Switch Groups > Membership. Ports with VMs attached to them are noted with a plus (+) or minus (–) in front of the port designation. Click on the plus icon to reveal the list of VMs attached to the port, or on the minus icon to hide them.

When VMs are revealed, the VM Group field shows the VSG to which the VMs are assigned. To put a VM into a specific VSG, choose the desired group number from the list of available group numbers.To put a VM in a different VSG, choose the new group number. By default, all VMs are unassigned.

It is important to assign at least one uplink port to the VM group if the VMs in the group need to communicate with other servers connected to the network. It is not necessary to assign an uplink port to a VSG if the VMs in the group only communicate with each other.

Note – VMs may belong to the same or different group as the port to which they are attached. The regular (non-VM) port traffic always uses the VSG specified for the port, and the VM traf- fic always uses the VSG specified for the VM. If the two are different, their traffic is internally separated, as if occurring on individual switches with independent ports.

VM Pre-provisioning

Use the VM Pre-Provision menu to add a VM in advance (prior to automatic discovery) into a group. Enter the MAC address of the VM and select the VSG to which it will be added. When the VM becomes active, it will be added to the selected group automatically.

Switch Management Ports

This part of the window lists ports reserved for switch management access. Listed ports are shown as part of the “Management” group.

BMD00082, February 2009 Chapter 8: Virtual Switch Groups „ 97