"Moving" Vkernel to another switch / nic on the same subnet

[vmcms]

1 ESX 3.5 server.

2 NICs on the same subnet

2 Virtual switches, one NIC each.

1rst swtich has all the VMs and a service console

2nd switch has vkernel (iSCSI) and a service console

I hosed myself when I put both NICs on the same subnet. Now I want to move my iSCSI to a separate network. I'd like to be able to do the following:

1. Very temporarily put vkernel on the same switch0 / NIC0 as my VMs et. al. Maintain iSCSI initiator IDs everything still works without major surgery.

2. Renumber NIC1 to target iSCSI network. (my SAN already has two NICs one is numbered on the target iSCSI network)

3. Create second Vkernel on new switch using NIC1 and new iSCSI storage adapter on new network

3. Liesurely remove VMs / LUNs from ESX Server. Add new iSCSI initiator to LUNs on SAN. Mount LUN in ESX Server. Add VM to inventory.

4. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. until all VMs / LUNs are "moved" from one initiator to another.

I opened a case with VMware support and they say you can't have more than one Vkernel per ESX host, but I don't believe them, yet.

Thanks for reading this. Any help appreciated.

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

You can have more than 1 vmkernel port group per host but they cannot be on the same switch/nic.

I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish, but if I am reading you right you wish to separate the iscsi traffic to it's own domain. If thats the case there is no need to change the ip addressing of the iscsi vmkernel. Just create a VLAN for iSCSI and then assign the port groups to that ID and you can create VLAN trunks to separate the traffic on the physical segs.

Hope that helps