Cannot ping VMs from 1 of 2 management machines

[T4nkcommander]

I have recently got my vSphere environment mostly setup and talking, with one strange exception. 

I have a laptop and a desktop both plugged into my ESXi host's 4 port NIC. Whichever computer is plugged into port 1 can login to vSphere using 99.0.0.13 (the original management network), whereas the second computer gets to hit 99.0.0.14 (Management2). What is strange is that tho both portgroups are setup exactly the same (as best I can tell), only the machine hitting 99.0.0.14 can ping any of the VMs. The other machine can do admin work and console in, but not ping. The problem is tied to the original Management network, since swapping physical ports results in the computers swapping pingability. Of course, everything is set to promiscuous. 

See attached picture for all the relevant screenshots from vSphere. 

[a_p_]

ESXi assigns uplinks (vmnics) in a round manner by default. Depending on the current assignments, or your "Failover&Teaming" configuration on the vSwitch, and port groups, only those VMs which are assigned to a given uplink/vmnic are accessible from the desktop/laptop that's plugged in to that port.

Solution: Use a switch!

André/

[T4nkcommander]

So even with identical configuration, this is expected behavior? I don't understand why two port groups configured the same way would have different results.

[a_p_]

The behavior is indeed as expected. The vmnics do not communicate with each other, as this could cause network issues (e.g. spanning tree). Did you check the Failover&Teaming settings o the vSwitch, and on the port groups?

If you want to see the vmnics which are used by the different VMs, run esxtop from the command line, and press 'n'.

André