Why 10G?

At this scale, 10G isn’t always necessary, but it becomes critical when:

• Cluster nodes frequently migrate workloads (live migration)
• Storage backend handles high IOPS (NFS over the cluster network)
• Multiple simultaneous backups or replications run

1Gbps becomes a bottleneck when doing any two of these simultaneously.

Checklist

• Your cluster nodes have 10G NIC capability (SFP+ ports)
• You have a managed switch supporting 10G and VLANs
• You understand the traffic patterns in your setup