How to segregate backup traffic on separate PNIC in Azure Stack HCI Cluster which is already running on fully-converged network configuration

pankaj vishwakarma 0 Reputation points
2023-10-09T10:03:58.6166667+00:00

Hello,

My production Azure Stack HCI cluster running on Fully-Converged network configuration. That means there is one SET switch that is teamed with all 4-port Mellanox card in the cluster, and Management, Storage and Compute traffic is currently traversing through this SET using using DCB and QoS settings for them.

When nightly backup run, that traffic also go through the existing SET creating additional traffic load on the HCI cluster performance.

We want to segregate this backup traffic on separate PNIC (by creating a separate vSwitch (SET) and uplink it to additional Broadcom NICs available in each HCI nodes.

For that there some logical configuration would be needed at HCI layer as well as at the physical network layer in physical switches I belive.

Can someone please help me configuring me the same?

Azure Stack HCI
Azure Stack HCI
A hyperconverged infrastructure operating system delivered as an Azure service that provides security, performance, and feature updates.
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  1. Trent Helms - MSFT 2,536 Reputation points Microsoft Employee
    2023-10-10T11:28:41.0566667+00:00

    Hi,

    Once you configure the adapter with an IP address, the cluster will automatically see the adapter and add it as a cluster network. If you want cluster to be able to use the network for its own communications (i.e. heartbeats), then you can leave it as-is. However, if you don't want cluster to use the adapter, you can change it so cluster does not use the network. You can do this by using the command below to set the role of the network.

    (Get-ClusterNetwork "NAME_OF_CLUSTER_NETWORK").Role = 0

    The roles associated with the network are as follows:

    0 = None 1 = Cluster 3 = ClusterAndClient

    To get the adapter to be used for backup traffic, you will need to configure a static route for traffic to the destination network to use the new local adapter. You do NOT want to configure another default gateway on this adapter as default gateways apply globally.

    Creating a switch-embedded team (SET) is optional. If you do go this route, simply apply the actions above to the virtual NIC (vNIC) which you create from the SET switch.

    Also optional, if the new backup adapters support RDMA, you may want to disable it. While it is doubtful the backup traffic would use RDMA, the cluster may try to. Disabling RDMA on these adapters would make them less preferred which could help avoid storage connections from being attempted over these adapters.

    Hope this helps!

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