Migrate standard vSwitch to Distributed vSwitch with iSCSI multipath

Hello everyone. I ran into some problems migrating from a standard vSwitch to a Distributed vSwitch, an I tought let me share it and maybe it can help someone. The reason was because I had multipathing configured for iSCSI connections on the standard vSwitch.

(it’s up to you to decide if you want iSCSI on standard vSwitch or distributed vSwitch. There are a lot of blogs/discussions on the internet about this subject.)

So here is what I did to make it work

First. Make sure you remove your multipathing under the host iSCSI adapter – network port Binding

Rescan your datastore. If your vcenter server is running on it then you will be disconnected for few seconds.

Now make your distributed switches by going to and right clicking “Home – Networking – your datacenter – New Distributed Switch”. Follow the wizard but leave the “create a default port group” unchecked. I like to make them myself. Also chose the correct number of uplinks.

I recommend making at least 2 DVS switches. One for storage ISCSI/ VSAN targets and the second for all the rest: vm network, vmotion, management, fault tolerance.  In large environments you make more than 2 VDS switches to split up everything of course.

 

Create all your port groups you need.

example:

VDS 1:
– management port group
– vmotion port group
– production port group
– fault tolerance port group

VDS 2:
– storage SAN NIC01
– storage SAN NIC02

 Make for every path a port group. in my case i had a dual nic san so i made 2 port groups

 

When I create the Port groups I make sure the port allocation is set on Elastic so it can grow automatically if you need new ports.

I migrated my storage standard switch first (2nics connected)

Follow the wizard and add your hosts. Link the physical adapters to the dvuplinks, click next and migrate you vm kernel ports. Click next to see if there is any impact and finish.

 

 

After that you can set up the multipathing again for iSCSI on the hosts

Now for the management/production network. I took another approach because the add host wizard wouldn’t work. So I removed a NIC from the standard vSwitch and attached it to the distributed Switch.

After that you can go back to Home – Networking and right-click you DVS switch and follow the “ add and manage host” wizard. Add your hosts, Link the physical adapters to the dvuplinks, click next and migrate you vm kernel ports and your host networking. Click next to see if there is any impact and finish.

An example of an end result of a distributed switch

 

It’s not the most detailed article but i hope this helps some one.