Use this task if you have two or more physical network adapters for iSCSI. And you want to connect all your physical adapters to a single vSphere standard switch. In this task, you add the physical adapters and VMkernel adapters to an existing vSphere standard switch.

Prerequisites

Create a vSphere standard switch that maps an iSCSI VMkernel adapter to a single physical network adapter designated for iSCSI traffic.

Procedure

  1. Browse to the host in the vSphere Web Client navigator.
  2. Click the Configure tab.
  3. Under Networking, click Virtual switches, and select the vSphere switch that you want to modify from the list.
  4. Connect additional network adapters to the switch.
    1. Click the Add host networking icon.
    2. Select Physical Network Adapters, and click Next.
    3. Make sure that you are using the existing switch, and click Next.
    4. Click the Add adapters icon, and select one or more network adapters (vmnic#) to use for iSCSI.
      With dependent hardware iSCSI adapters, select only those NICs that have a corresponding iSCSI component.
    5. Complete configuration, and click Finish.
  5. Create iSCSI VMkernel adapters for all physical network adapters that you added.
    The number of VMkernel interfaces must correspond to the number of physical network adapters on the vSphere standard switch.
    1. Click the Add host networking icon.
    2. Select VMkernel Network Adapter, and click Next.
    3. Make sure that you are using the existing switch, and click Next.
    4. Complete configuration, and click Finish.

What to do next

Change the network policy for all VMkernel adapters, so that only one physical network adapter is active for each VMkernel adapter. You can then bind the iSCSI VMkernel adapters to the software iSCSI or dependent hardware iSCSI adapters.