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. Navigate to the host.
  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 the dependent hardware iSCSI adapter, select the vmnic that has a corresponding iSCSI component. With the iSER adapter, make sure to use an appropriate RDMA-capable vmnic.
    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 VMkernel adapters to the appropriate iSCSI adapters.