4.6 Configuring Network Resources for Virtual Machines

The Networking tab is used to manage networks within the Oracle VM environment running on the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance.

Caution

By default, a number of networks are defined during factory installation. These must not be altered as they are required for the correct operation of the Oracle Private Cloud Appliance software layer.

The default networks are set up as follows:

  • 192.168.32.0 : the internal management network

    This is a private network providing connectivity between the management nodes and compute nodes, using VLAN 3092. It is used for all network traffic inherent to Oracle VM Manager, Oracle VM Server and the Oracle VM Agents.

  • 192.168.40.0 : the internal storage network

    This is a private network used exclusively for traffic to and from the ZFS storage appliance. Both management nodes and compute nodes can reach the internal storage on VLAN 3093. The network also fulfills the heartbeat function for the clustered Oracle VM server pool.

Additionally, two networks are listed with the VM Network role:

  • default_external

    This default network is the standard choice for virtual machines requiring external network connectivity. It supports both tagged and untagged traffic. For untagged traffic it uses the Oracle VM standard VLAN 1, meaning no additional configuration is required.

    If you prefer to use VLANs for your VM networking, configure the additional VLAN interfaces and networks of your choice as follows:

    Note

    When reprovisioning compute nodes or provisioning newly installed compute nodes, you always need to configure VLANs manually. The VLAN configuration is not applied automatically when the compute node joins an existing server pool.

    1. Go to the Networking tab and select the VLAN Interfaces subtab.

      The process for creating VLAN Interfaces is described in detail in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide in the section entitled Create VLAN Interfaces.

    2. Click Create VLAN Interface. In the navigation tree of the Create VLAN Interfaces window, select the vx13040 VxLAN interface of each compute node in the default Rack1_ServerPool.

    3. In the next step of the wizard, add the VLAN IDs you require. When you complete the wizard, a new VLAN interface for each new VLAN ID is configured on top of each compute node interface you selected.

    4. Create a new Oracle VM network with the VM role, on the VLAN interfaces for each VLAN tag you created. Each new network should contain the VLAN interfaces associated with a particular VLAN ID; for example all VLAN interfaces with ID 11 on top of a vx13040 interface.

      Tip

      You can filter the VLAN interfaces by ID to simplify the selection of the VLAN interfaces participating in the new network.

      The process for creating networks with VLAN interfaces is described in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide in the section entitled Create New Network.

      Note

      To start using the new network at the VM level, edit the necessary VMs and assign a VNIC to connect to the new network.

    5. Configure your data center network accordingly.

  • default_internal

    This default network is intended for virtual machines requiring network connectivity to other virtual machines hosted on the appliance, but not external to the appliance. For untagged traffic it uses the Oracle VM standard VLAN 1. To use the VLANs of your choice, configure the additional VLAN interfaces and networks as follows:

    Note

    When reprovisioning compute nodes or provisioning newly installed compute nodes, you always need to configure VLANs manually. The VLAN configuration is not applied automatically when the compute node joins an existing server pool.

    1. Go to the Networking tab and select the VLAN Interfaces subtab.

      The process for creating VLAN Interfaces is described in detail in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide in the section entitled Create VLAN Interfaces.

    2. Click Create VLAN Interface. In the navigation tree of the Create VLAN Interfaces window, select the vx2 VxLAN interface of each compute node in the default Rack1_ServerPool.

    3. In the next step of the wizard, add the VLAN IDs you require. When you complete the wizard, a new VLAN interface for each new VLAN ID is configured on top of each compute node network port you selected.

    4. Create a new VLAN network with the VM role for each VLAN tag you added. Each new network should contain the VLAN interfaces associated with a particular VLAN ID; for example all VLAN interfaces with ID 1001 on top of a vx2 interface.

      Tip

      You can filter the VLAN interfaces by ID to simplify the selection of the VLAN interfaces participating in the new network.

      The process for creating networks with VLAN interfaces is described in the Oracle VM Manager User's Guide in the section entitled Create New Network.

For more information about Oracle Private Cloud Appliance network configuration, see Section 1.2.4, “Network Infrastructure”.

Caution

Do not alter the internal appliance administration network (192.168.4.0) connections on the compute nodes or any other rack components. The environment infrastructure depends on the correct operation of this network.

For example, if you configured networking for virtual machines in such a way that they can obtain an IP address in the 192.168.4.0 subnet, IP conflicts and security issues are likely to occur.

Note

If VM-to-VM network performance is not optimal, depending on the type of network load, you could consider increasing the guests' MTU from the default 1500 bytes to 9000. Note that this is a change at the VM level; the compute node interfaces are set to accommodate 9000 bytes already, and must never be modified. Connectivity between VMs and external systems may also benefit from the higher MTU, provided this is supported across the entire network path.

Do not edit or delete any of the networks listed here. Doing so may cause your appliance to malfunction. In an Oracle Private Cloud Appliance context, use the Networking tab to configure and manage Virtual NICs and VLANs for use by your virtual machines.

Figure 4.2 A view of the Networking tab

Screenshot showing the Networking tab of the Oracle VM Manager user interface.