As far as I know, you shouldn't have any problem connecting 2 differents NIC on a vswitch. As long as the NIC are on the HCL, you won't notice any difference.

Francis

You can do a software load balance with different NIC types.

You can't do a proprietary driver-based link aggregate like an HP LA Trunk but you can do a software load balance.  You 'should' also still be able to do a dot1q trunk at the switch level as well.

If it was useful, give me credit

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/polysulfide

VI From Concept to Implementation

No problem at all...Fully supporte by VM  We had issues in version 2.x but not in 3.x

See this post  -->>  http://communities.vmware.com/message/682802

There were issues in the past with mixing Intel and Broadcom NICs. Even though the issues are resolved if you have the ability to keep all the NICs connected to a vSwitch the same I would do that, its just one less potential thing to cause problems at some point. I think there is less risk if you are doing some kind of active/standby configuration.

Don Pomeroy

VMware Communities User Moderator