This portion of the lab is presented as a Hands-on Labs Interactive Simulation. This simulation will enable you to navigate the software interface as if you are interacting with a live environment.

The orange boxes show where to click, and you can also use the left and right arrow keys to move through the simulation in either direction.

Network I/O Control

In this simulation we will see how to configure Network I/O Control. First we will look at the virtual machines that we will be using.

1. Begin by clicking Hosts and Clusters
2. In the Navigator pane on the left, click perf-worker-02a
3. Notice that it's located on the host 10.144.97.226
4. Click perf-worker-03a
5. Notice that it's located on the host 10.144.97.227
6. Click perf-worker-04a
7. Notice that it's also located on the host 10.144.97.227

Run the Test

Next we will execute a netperf command on two of the virtual machines to observe the network bandwidth.

1. The two Putty console windows are already running. On the Windows taskbar, click the two buttons labeled "root&perf-worker-0..." to open the windows.
2. The command is already typed in. Hit the Enter key to execute the command.
3. Click on the other putty window, then hit the Enter key to execute the same command.

   This will run 2 network loads, from each VM, against "perf-worker-02a" located on the other ESXi host.

4. Wait a few seconds for the test to complete.

Test Result

Notice that both VMs generate a network load, at about 500 Mbps in total each (2 x 249Mbps), which means that both VMs get an equal amount of bandwith.

Configuration

Before making a network resource pool, we first have to allocate the amount of bandwith that we want to shape. This can be no more than 75% of the maximum bandwith available, to allow capacity for essential networking services.

1. Click the vSphere web client
2. Click the Networking Tab in the Navigator pane, or use the quick access menu to select Networking.
3. Click the distributed switch named DSwitch
4. Click the Manage tab
5. Click the Resource Allocation button
6. In the list of traffic types, click "Virtual Machine Traffic"
7. Click the edit button above the list (looks like a pencil)
8. Change the Reservation to "Maximum: 750 Mbit/s"
9. Click OK

Network Resource Pool

Now that we have allocated the bandwidth we can create a network resource pool, which is required to be able to reserve bandwith for VMs

1. Click "Network resource pools"
2. Click the green + icon to create a new network resource pool
3. Click the Name field and type "NIOC"
4. Change the reservation quota to "Maximum: 1500 Mbit/s"
5. Click OK
6. Refresh the vSphere Web Client, by pressing the refresh icon in the top center. The new resource pool will now be displayed.
7. In the Navigator pane, click the MGMT port group.
8. Right-click on the MGMT port group and then click Edit Settings...
9. Click the Network resource pool, and change from (default) to NIOC, which is the resource pool you just created
10. Click OK

VM reservation

Next, set the reservation for one of the virtual machines, perf-worker-04a.

1. Click the Hosts and Clusters tab in the Navigator pane, or use the quick access menu to select Hosts and Clusters
2. Click the Actions menu and click Edit Settings...
3. Click to expand Network adapter 1
4. Click the Reservation box and type 750
5. Click OK

Run the Test

Next, go back to the Putty windows and run the same commands again.

1. On the Windows taskbar, click the two buttons labeled "root&perf-worker-0..." to open the Putty windows.
2. The command is already typed in. Hit the Enter key to execute the command.
3. Click on the other putty window, then hit the Enter key to execute the same command.
4. Wait a few seconds for the test to complete.

Notice that in the second test perf-worker-04a got a lot more bandwith than perf-worker-03a, due to the reservations made in the earlier steps.

To return to the lab, click the link in the top right corner or close this browser tab.