Network Infrastructure advice

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
1

Hi all,
We have 5x xcp-ng hypervisor, and 1x TrueNAS storage server and another Dell Equallogic storage server. The Hypervisors each have 2x 10G ports. We also have 2x 16 port Mikrotik switch to connect it all with. We cannot decide if it is better to bond the 2x ports in LACP mode with Mikrotik MLAG OR to use 1x port for storage connection and 1x port for normal traffic?
The advantage of bonding the 2 interfaces is that it offer a failover if 1 port goes down and separate traffic.

What do you guys think?

Thank you

2

Ports very rarely are the cause of failure and storage traffic should be on a dedicated network.

3

@LTS_Tom do you classify a vlan as a dedicated network? If yes, I could bond the interface and pass traffic using vlan for separation?

Can you please advice further?

Thank you

4

VLAN’s share the physical layer and therefor the bandwidth making them not the same as a dedicated network.

5

@LTS_Tom thank you for the reply. So then worse case scenario let say I have 1 interface down, as the host sahre the same storage, can I simply restart a VM on another host?

6

Yes, that could be made to work.

7

If I dedicate a dedicated network port to get the max bandwidth performance from the host, does it matter if the swich receive all traffic going through it (LAN + Storage)? I have a Mikrotik CRS317-1G-16S+RM. The storage network doesn’t have a dedicated switch. Will I still benefit for the performance of the dedicated interface in my scenario?

8

Could anyone please help me with my last question?

9

Yes, as long as you operate the device strictly as a Layer2 switch.

See here: MikroTik Routers and Wireless - Products: CRS317-1G-16S+RM

Non blocking Layer 2 throughput: 158,906.4 Mbps with a package size of 1518 byte (MTU1500)

158,906.4 / 16 = 9931.65

So If all ports were fully utilized, you would still get a throughput of 9931.65Mbps, per port, which (almost) matches the 10Gbps that is advertised.

10

Thank you very much for this great explanation. I tried it before and could get the math right… I didn’t realise it was 158,906.4 / 16