Can network adapters be connected to two different switches?

[siddjayy]

Hi Experts,

Had a question regarding installation of ESXi 6.5

During the post- installation activities where we select network adapters for redundancy, if I have just two nics on server. Can i connect vmnic0(NIC1) to a switch that has IP range 10.0.5.0/24 with gateway 10.0.5.1 and vmnic1(NIC2) to a switch that has IP range 10.0.3.0/24 with gateway as 10.0.3.1?

Does it make sense or both the NIC1 & NIC 2 should be on same ?

Thanks,

Siddhesh

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can certainly do that. But if you've assigned a management vmkernel port on your 10.0.5.0 /24 network, then it needs to use vmnic0 for its communication. If you wanted to run VMs over the 10.0.3.0 /24 network, then create another vswitch to use the uplink for vmnic1.

[siddjayy]

Daphnissov,

Thank you very much for quick response!! Answer's Spot on!!

So, if I understand correctly, vmnic 1 cannot be used as a fail over for vmnic0

Regards,

Siddhesh

[daphnissov]

The answer is:  It depends. If vmnic0 is in access mode for network A and vmnic1 is access mode for network B, then no. If both are trunks and you've specified VLAN tags for your kernel services and VM portgroups, then yes.