Figure 3.42 A nonconverged Hyper-V host configuration with separate 1Gbps NIC
teams for each type of traffic
Having this many 1Gbps network adapters may be possible, but as datacenters move
to 10Gbps, another solution is needed in keeping with the converged direction in
which many datacenters are focused. Some unified solutions offer the ability to carve
up a single connection from the server to the backplane into virtual devices such as
network adapters, which is one solution to this problem. It’s also possible, however, to
solve this by using the Hyper-V virtual switch, which traditionally was available only
for virtual machines.
One of the properties of a virtual switch is the option to allow the management
operating system to share the network adapter, which creates a virtual network
adapter (vNIC) on the Hyper-V host itself that was connected to the virtual switch.
This would allow the management traffic and the VM traffic to share the virtual
switch. It’s possible, though, to create additional vNICs on the management operating
system connected to the virtual switch for other purposes by using PowerShell. QoS
can then be used to ensure that sufficient bandwidth is guaranteed for each of the
vNICs created so that one type of traffic would use up all of the bandwidth and stop
other types of communication. To add more vNICs on the Hyper-V host connected to a
virtual switch, use the following command (changing the switch name from External
Switch to a valid virtual switch name in your environment):
Add-VMNetworkAdapter -ManagementOS -SwitchName "
The ability to create vNICs in the management operating system connected to a virtual
switch that can in turn be connected to a native NIC team that is made up of multiple
network adapters makes it possible to create a converged networking approach for the
Hyper-V host. Because separate vNICs are used for each type of traffic, QoS can be
used to ensure that bandwidth is available when needed, as shown in Figure 3.43. In