Create a new ephemeral port group for the vCSA recovery
To restore the vCenter attached to a dvSwitch properly, you should configure the port group as Ephemeral.
This solution can save a lot of time when you will need recovery your vCenter server.
Ephemeral binding
In a port group configured with ephemeral binding, a port is created and assigned to a virtual machine by the host when the virtual machine is powered on and its NIC is in a connected state. When the virtual machine powers off or the NIC of the virtual machine is disconnected, the port is deleted.
You can assign a virtual machine to a distributed port group with ephemeral port binding on ESX/ESXi and vCenter, giving you the flexibility to manage virtual machine connections through the host when vCenter is down. Although only ephemeral binding allows you to modify virtual machine network connections when vCenter is down, network traffic is unaffected by vCenter failure regardless of port binding type.
Let’s start it.
- Create new DVS dedicated to Management and Ephemeral for vCSA Recovery.
2. Set up name DVS-vCSA-Network.
3. Select version in my case I will use 6.5.
4. Select number of uplinks for my LAB i use just 1 but for production environment you need some redundancy.
Also I create default port group named vCSA-Network
5. Lets create new port group for vCSA recovery. Right click on DVS-vCSA-Network Distributed Switch.
6. Type port group name vCSA-Ephemeral-Recovery
7. Select Ephemeral – no binding
8. Now you have new DVS switch and 2 port group dedicated for vCSA network.
vCSA-Ephemeral-Recovery – only use for recovery vCSA
vCSA-Network – for management network
9. You need to add also host do VDS.
10. Add hosts
11. Select hosts.
12. Select just physicals adapters.
13. I assigned just vmnic1. To do it select vmnic1 and click Assign uplink. You need to do it for all presented hosts.
14. Lets try move Vcenter from VM Network to new vCSA-Network
15. You need to select Source and Destination.
16. Select vm to migrate. I have only vcenter100 on this network.
17. Click finish and check if you vcenter don’t lost network connectivity. You can also test same thing on ephemeral port group.
Looks fine so your port group for dedicated Management and Recovery is ready to test.
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