pros and cons to bridging 2 NIC Cards

[drummelhart]

I have been told by one friend that to optimize a virtual Server Host it is a good option to bridge all NIC Cards.

What are the pros and cons to this method?

 

[Sympology]

Bridge or Team?

Most people spend their time on the "urgent" rather than on the "important."

 

[drummelhart]

I have never thought of the word team, but yeah team up all NIC Cards

 

[SimonDavies]

Teaming would only really benefit if you were also going to team the original NICs and your switches supported Etherchannel.

Teaming is normally used in servers as a method of splitting the traffic out via a centralised single NIC, the teamed cards would present a new MAC address out and use both NIC's to transmit data out, should a card fail the teamed card would still function but at a reduced capacity.

How exactly are you using the virtual server?


Oh and your friend 'could' be correct with Bridging as well, if you bridge your physical and virtual nics together it essentially presents your virtual server onto the same lan segment on the network rather than a segment on your local machine (for instance my VMware Workstation provides it's own DHCP server using the 192.168.32.x and 192.168.76.x networks, great for isolation but pants if I want them accessesing resources on my network).

You need to tell us what you want the end result to be, is it that you want the virtual servers to be able to access the local network resources? or is it something else? Because teaming your virtual servers based on them using their own network segment just isn't logical and would be a waste of time.



Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[drummelhart]

What I am doing with my server at this time is using 1 NIC, yet each guest OS is bridged, allowing them to run on my network, not in a NAT'd network.

I was trying to figure out how to get both NIC cards running will 10.10.0.203 and 10.10.0.204 on a 255.255.255.0 and then have VMware see that I have 2 NIC's.

I do not know if this would hold water.

If I NAT, then a person would have to RDP to the Host OS, and from there, UNC, map drive, or again RDP.

 

[IRudebwoy]

Well, depending on the version of VMware you're using it could be easy or impossible. I know with the free versions of VMware Server (1 and 2) you cannot bind vmbridge to a bridged, teamed or bonded network interface only individual NICs. With VI3 you can do pretty much anything because of the vitual switch embedded in the product.

I've never tried with VMware Workstation.

 

[drummelhart]

good to know! Thanks!