Sufficient planning and preparation work, with regard to networking, can turn days of configuration for a large deployment into something that you can achieve in a matter of hours. In this section, we consider some of the steps that you might take to ensure that you are ready to set up networking with more ease.
The logical network constructs within Oracle VM are a combination of individual components, or building blocks. You can assemble these individual components into whatever network infrastructure you need. For this reason, during your planning phase, you should identify each component and gather the information required to map these components into virtual constructs within Oracle VM Manager. Maintaining a spreadsheet of this information can help you to prepare and properly plan for your deployment.
Before you begin, using the information provided in Section 5.6, “How are Network Functions Separated in Oracle VM?”, you should determine how much network separation you require within your deployment and what different networks you want to make use of. Remember, that in a test or demonstration environment, it is perfectly acceptable to use a single network to cater to all of your networking requirements. In a production level deployment, it is desirable to provide as much network separation as possible to ensure the best possible performance for the components that are used in an Oracle VM environment. On the other hand, depending on your networking infrastructure, the number of networks that you create may be limited by the hardware that you have at your disposal. With this in mind, prioritize the different networks based on your requirements and determine which networks may share functions.
Now identify the Oracle VM Servers that you intend to use within your deployment, along with the number of NICs available on each server. Ensure that you understand how they are cabled into your switching infrastructure. This helps to ensure that when you configure network ports in Oracle VM Manager, these ports are connected to your network infrastructure in the way that you expect. Plan how you intend to group servers into server pools.
The next part of your planning involves selecting the type of network elements that you intend to use to construct your logical networks within Oracle VM for each server pool. Logical network types consist of any of the following:
Networks with ports and/or bonds.
Networks with VLANs only.
Hybrid networks consisting of ports and bonds, and VLANs.
Logical networks on a single server (server local network).
Preparation for each network type can vary both in terms of complexity and in terms of content, since different networking components are involved in each case.
Regardless of the logical network type that you choose to use, you should bear in mind the following general networking rules:
By default the management network interface after an initial installation is created as a network bond called bond0. This interface can have a static or dynamic IP address, but the IP address should remain constant. It is possible to change the management interface, but this requires careful planning as the change may impact other networks used in a deployment.
DHCP can be used to assign IP addresses to any network interface within the deployment, however if you choose to use DHCP for the allocation of IP address information on any of the network interfaces other than the management network interface, you must ensure that a default route is not set for any interface other than the management network interface.
You should never configure more than one interface on the same sub-network. If you do this, the first available interface is selected for all network traffic. If you intend to use multiple network interface cards on the same sub-network, you must set up a bond.
If you cannot support VLANs in your switches, the number of logical networks available to you is immediately limited by the number of physical NICs within each server, and whether or not you choose to make use of network bonding for redundancy and performance.
If you choose to set up network bonds on your servers, you do this as part of your server configuration process, prior to defining any additional networks within Oracle VM. Configuring network bonds using the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface is discussed in Bond Ports Perspective in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide.
If you are only using network ports without bonding, simply keep track of how many ports are available in each server and ensure that you understand how these are connected to your switches as these ports have a one-to-one correlation with the logical networks that you are able to create. Make notes of the IP addressing and subnetworks that should be used for each port.
If you choose to use network bonding, you should identify which ports belong to which bonds you intend to create. In this case, each bond has a direct correlation with a logical network that you can create within Oracle VM. Once network bonding is enabled, the ports can no longer be used independently and your IP address and subnetwork information is specific to the network bond itself. Make notes of the IP addressing and subnetworks that should be used for each bond.
You should now be able to map the information that you have about servers, ports, bonds and IP addressing directly onto the different logical networks that you wish to create. For each logical network, make a note of the different network channels that you wish to support within each of these subnetworks. Ensure that the components that are used within the channel of the network are all physically connected to the same network.
With all of this information, you are ready to begin configuration. It is important to bear the following points in mind:
All servers that you wish to include in a network must have already been discovered in Oracle VM Manager
If you create a network with ports, these ports, located on the Oracle VM Servers that will participate in the network, cannot be part of an already existing network.
If you are using network bonds, you must create these on each of your servers before you begin adding networks
If your switching infrastructure supports VLANs and you have opted to make use of them, you are able to perform traffic separation across each VLAN regardless of the number of actual physical network ports that are available within each of your servers. Nonetheless, different VLAN segments may be available on different ports or bonds that you may have already configured.
Therefore, for each server, you should list the VLAN segment IDs on each port or bond. Make a note of the IP address and subnet information for each VLAN segment. If your network traffic is routed, also include the default gateway IP address here.
Once you have a list of ports or bonds and the VLAN segments that belong to them, you have the information that you need to define your VLAN Interfaces within Oracle VM. List the VLAN Interfaces that you intend to create for each server pool. Within this list, assign each VLAN Interface to the logical networks that you intend to create. For each logical network, list the channels that the network can support. Ensure that the components that are used within each channel of the network are all physically connected to the same network and that the VLAN segments on each NIC are configured correctly on your switches.
With all of this information, you are ready to begin configuration. It is important to bear the following points in mind:
All servers that you wish to include in a network must have already been discovered in Oracle VM Manager
If you are using network bonds, you must create these on each of your servers before you begin adding networks or creating VLAN Interfaces
You must create VLAN Interfaces before you start adding networks
When creating a VLAN Interface, you provide the following information:
The port on the server where VLAN traffic for the VLAN ID or segment is routed.
The VLAN ID that the VLAN Interface should handle.
And, optionally, the IP address to assign to each port or VLAN interface.
Note that when actually creating VLAN Interfaces for a server, the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface provides the facility to generate multiple VLAN Interfaces for a range of VLAN IDs in a single step, reducing the amount of work involved in configuring each VLAN segment.
When creating the network do not specify any ports or bonds to add to the network. Instead, add the appropriate VLAN interfaces to the network.
If your servers have multiple NICs and your switching infrastructure supports VLANs, there may be some scenarios where you need to set up a hybrid network that utilizes a combination of VLANs and network bonds or ports. Consider a situation where some of the servers within a pool are connected to a switch that is configured for VLANs, while another group of servers with multiple NICs is connected to a switch that does not offer VLAN support. In this situation, a network can be created that uses the VLAN Interfaces defined for the first set of servers, but uses ports or bonds for the second set of servers.
Since these network types are using a combination of technologies, they are also the most complex to plan for and require explicit switch setup to handle adding and removing VLAN tags when crossing environments. This is a highly advanced and relatively unusual configuration. Therefore, performing adequate preparation work is essential and can help avoid confusion when you are configuring networks within Oracle VM Manager.
Maintain a list of all of the Oracle VM Servers for each server pool. Ensure that the list includes the information for each port on each server. If the server is configured to use network bonding, list the bonds and include the actual physical NICs that are part of the bond.
Group together servers that are going to use VLANs and servers that are only using ports or bonds. For the servers that are using ports or bonds, ensure that the IP address and subnet information is listed. For servers using VLANs, you should list the VLAN segment IDs on each port or bond. Make a note of the IP address and subnet information for each VLAN segment. If your network traffic is routed, also include the default gateway IP address here.
For each logical network that you intend to create, list the channels that the network can support. Ensure that the components that are used within each channel of the network are all physically connected to the same network and that the VLAN segments on each port or bond are configured correctly on your switches. Also ensure that for each server not using VLAN technology, the cabling is correct for each network port and that the components within each channel are all connected to the same network.
With all of this information, you are ready to begin configuration. It is important to bear the following points in mind:
All servers that you wish to include in a network must have already been discovered in Oracle VM Manager.
If you are using network bonds, you must create these on each of your servers before you begin adding networks or creating VLAN Interfaces.
You must create VLAN Interfaces before you start adding networks.
When creating a VLAN Interface, you provide the following information:
The port on the server where VLAN traffic for the VLAN ID or segment is routed.
The VLAN ID that the VLAN Interface should handle.
And, optionally, the IP address to assign to each port or VLAN interface.
Note that when actually creating VLAN Interfaces for a server, the Oracle VM Manager Web Interface provides the facility to generate multiple VLAN Interfaces for a range of VLAN IDs in a single step, reducing the amount of work involved in configuring each VLAN segment.
Ensure that servers that are not using VLAN Interfaces are added to the network and that the correct port or bond is added to the network.
Finally for the servers using VLAN Interfaces, add the appropriate VLAN interfaces to the network.
You may also create a network which is intended for a single server. This type of network allows communication between the virtual machines running on a single Oracle VM Server, and does not allow external network traffic. A computing environment made up of several virtual machines, where the virtual machines provide services to each other over the network, could benefit from this type of network, without requiring additional network ports on the Oracle VM Server. As the network traffic can never leave the server, it can be a high speed network. Virtual machines using this type of network cannot be moved or migrated to another Oracle VM Server unless the network configuration is removed from the virtual machine. This is known as a server local network.
Little additional planning or preparation for server local networks is required, however if you use networks of this type, you should decide which Oracle VM Servers you intend to create them on and understand that the virtual machines running on these servers cannot be moved or migrated easily.