Azure Stack HCI: Software Defined Network in Storage Traffic - Peer to peer on node's NIC design

Question

Hi,

Please help me out on there inquiries:

1st - Is there such a design or is it possible if the architecture of the SDN for the Storage traffic of Azure Stack HCI on premise servers would be peer to peer? Not the usual setup that it is connected to the physical switches?

2nd - I have existing Azure Stack HCI with the SDN design of the storage traffic is connected to the switches with redundant design. Would there be any risk if I change each on of the Storage traffic/node and change it to peer to peer? Would there be risk on the configured Pooled hard disks? Would there be data loss?

Thank you!

Answer 1

Hi @Rolaine Nicdao ,

I believe you are asking about what we call switchless configuration, where the interconnect network connections are not going through a switch, but between each of the nodes. See the "Switched or Switchless" section of this document: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/storage-spaces/storage-spaces-direct-hardware-requirements

In switchless configurations there is no need for SDN on the interconnect networks. Usually you have a separate set of NICs that are providing network connection out to the world for your VMs to use, that is the network in which you'd configure the Virtual Switch. The interconnect doesn't need a virtual switch or network teaming.

I hope this helps,
Steven Ekren
StevenEk@Microsoft.com