Subnets for vmkernels: same or different

[beaconfield]

I don't know why this is bothing me, but I thought I'd throw it out there:

Currently I have two vmkernels (vmk0, vmk1) on my ESXi hosts.

vmk0 - management => subnet 10.10.1.20 VLAN2

vmk1 - vmotion => subnet 10.10.3.4 VLAN4

Our ESX(i) hosts have always had the SC/mgmt vmkernel ports on the VLAN2 subnet and the vMotion vmkernel ports on the VLAN4 subnet.

My question is simply: does it matter? Could both vmkernels be on the same subnet, VLAN4 for example?

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

They could but best practice is to keep motion and management traffic segmented either by vlan or physical seperation -

[beaconfield]

Okay that really helps me a lot actually. I was going back and forth in my head for days.

Thanks again. Is that documented somewhere in the official vSphere docs?

[weinstein5]

Yes - check out http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_esxi_server_config.pdf page 67