Creating a Lab Virtual ESXi for testing/learning purpose

[Rapiscan]

I am new in this VMware technonlogy. I have some questions here to ask. I am trying to setup a virtual test lab on my laptop. Is this possible?

The laptop has i7 processor, 12GB of memory, and 2x 500GB HDD. I will be using the second 500GB for Openfiler with iSCSI connection.

Here are the questions.

1. The laptop has only one LAN port, but I need to set HA and FT on it. Can I just add more virtual adapters on the ESXi hosts?

2. Workstation 7 by default has VMnet0, VMnet1 and VMnet8. Can I use them for ESXi hosts also or they should not be used?

3. Which options should I assign these virtual network adapters (NAT, Host-Only, or Custom)?

[DSTAVERT · Accepted solution]

When you create your ESX(i) guests inside Workstation I would simply use bridged for the network just to get started. Keep it simple to start. Set up openfiler as a Workstation VM.