This subject seems to rear it\u2019s ugly head with every new version of Hyper-V.\u00a0 We get new people trying the product for the first time who don\u2019t know the best practices.\u00a0 And we get people who forget the best practices from last time around.<\/p>\n
Here is my advice:<\/p>\n
Use Logo Tested NICs<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Only NICs that are on the HCL for your version of Windows Server (or Windows client OS if using Client Hyper-V) should be used.\u00a0 Make sure that your hardware manufacturer supports your version of Hyper-V (i.e. Windows Server) for all components that you are using from them.\u00a0 This is a starting point because \u2026<\/p>\n If At All Possible, Do Not Use Broadcom NICs<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Sure, that might preclude you from using certain stuck-in-2009 server manufacturers.\u00a0 And maybe that\u2019s not a bad thing \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n Broadcom seems to be a name that comes up over and over, version after version, when there are problems.\u00a0 My lab is all Chelsio, but that moves you into the territory of 10 GbE iWARP, which is more expensive than what comes onboard a host.\u00a0 But it allows me to get great SMB 3.0 performance for storage and Live Migration over converged networks.\u00a0 Intel seems to produce decent NICs, firmwares, and drivers, which leads me to \u2026<\/p>\n Update Your Firmware<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Assumption \u2026 ARGH!\u00a0 Do not assume that your firmwares are up to date.\u00a0 I don\u2019t care how new your server is.\u00a0 This goes for every part of the server.\u00a0 Update the firmware.\u00a0 Faulty older firmware is a common cause of issues.<\/p>\n Update Your Drivers<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Use the latest drivers from the manufacturer<\/em>.\u00a0 The drivers you got with the server might be old.\u00a0 The drivers in Windows Server might be old too.\u00a0 For example, the automatically detected Chelsio drivers in WS2012 R2 give poor performance.\u00a0 The fix is to download the drivers from Chelsio.\u00a0 If you bought a HP NIC then get the latest drivers from HP.\u00a0 If you bought a NIC from Dell then get the drivers from Dell.<\/p>\n Install The Recommended Updates For Windows Server<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Windows Update is not enough. Let me repeat that: WINDOWS UPDATE IS NOT ENOUGH. If you think it is, then please stop reading, print off a resignation letter, and go home now. Download and install the recommended updates for Windows Server. This link<\/a>\u00a0will lead you to 3 sets of updates for WS2012 R2.<\/p>\n Understand<\/em> And Use Microsoft NIC Teaming<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Third-party NIC teaming has never been supported by Microsoft for anything<\/span>.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because third-party NIC teaming pulls out the guts of Windows NIC teaming, pushes itself in, squeezes the networking stack back in, finds a few of those \u201cspare screws\u201d and throws them aside.<\/p>\n Take the time to learn Microsoft NIC teaming<\/a> (there\u2019s more to any teaming than the default options) and use it instead of the third-party unsupported crapware.<\/p>\n EDIT (28\/07\/2014):<\/p>\n One more to add ..<\/p>\n Don’t Use Blade Servers<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n You have no choice but to use what the manufacturer gives you. For many of you, that will be Emulex NICs … and using those are like going fire-walking after taking a bath in petrol (benzine for Europeans, and gas for Americans).<\/p>\n Disable VMQ on Virtual Switch NICs<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n This is a workaround, and not a solution. We want and may even need VMQ for networking performance and scalability. However, we have seen NICs (Emulex and Broadcom) where having VMQ enabled has caused issues. This should be fixed by the manufacturer using firmware\/driver updates … but some manufacturers don’t give a damn about their customers. Emulex – care to prove me wrong?<\/p>\n This subject seems to rear it\u2019s ugly head with every new version of Hyper-V.\u00a0 We get new people trying the product for the first time who don\u2019t know the best practices.\u00a0 And we get people who forget the best practices from last time around. Here is my advice: Use Logo Tested NICs Only NICs that … Continue reading “How To Avoid Common Networking Issues In Hyper-V”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[181,80,195,118,120],"class_list":["post-15638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hyper-v","tag-hyper-v","tag-networking","tag-virtualisation","tag-windows-server-2012","tag-windows-server-2012-r2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15638"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16875,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15638\/revisions\/16875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}