You can isolate VMkernel traffic (management, vSAN, vMotion, or overlay) across multiple physical NICs (pNICs). You can enable four pNICs per host in NSX for vSphere workload domains, and up to six pNICs per host in NSX-T workload domains. Each vDS supports two pNICS, so you must define additional vDSes and map traffic per vDS as appropriate.
You can use hosts with additional pNICs for the following:
- Management domain (by using these hosts in the Cloud Foundation bring-up process)
- Creating VI workload domains
- Adding clusters to the management domain or VI workload domains
- Adding hosts to a cluster
You can stretch an NSX for vSphere cluster that contains hosts with multiple pNICs (four pNICs and two vDSes) enabled. An NSX-T cluster with the following pNIC combinations can be stretched using manual guidance:
- Four pNICs (one vDS and one N-VDS)
- Six pNICs (two vDS and one N-VDS)
Traffic isolation across physical NICs is not supported through the UI. You must enable the additional pNICs on hosts before commissioning them to Cloud Foundation. You can then update the API spec to map traffic flow to reflect your physical topology. For information on using APIs, see VMware Cloud Foundation API Reference Guide.
