VSA and multiple NICs

[nappyrat]

We're deploying VSAs in standalone esxi boxes for remote offices.  My plan was to have 2 NICs on the VSA.  One would be connected to an internal only vswitch with the esxi vmkernel interface for iscsi traffic.  The other would be connected to a vswitch that connects out to the rest of the network, to be used for management and replicating back to main site.

The subnets I am using are

192.168.199.0/24  This is the LAN subnet where everything else is

192.168.25.0  This is the subnet used just on the internal storage vswitch in esxi.  this subnet is not accessible from the LAN

I added another network adapter to the VSA, and set it up like this

eth0 192.168.25.20

eth1 192.168.199.157

default gw 192.168.199.201 (router on my network)

the iSCSI VIP is 192.168.25.30

This seems to work from a storage standpoint.  My esxi server vmkernel interface is 192.168.25.10 and i can see the test volume i created on the vsa as storage on esxi.  However, I get errors depending on which interface I set the Manger IP Addresses to.

If I set it to eth0, then I'm unable to do things like view events, because it my CMC tries to connect to the iscsi ip address side which isnt' available to the rest of the network.  

if i set it to eth1 then I get a big alert about VIP error: System is not reachable by any VIP in teh cluster

Is this kind of configuraton just not possible? I didn't really find any examples of ways to separate the storage/management/replication traffic

[RonsDavis · Accepted solution]

Support told me no to run in this fashion. Instead I have a management station that is on my internal network, and the iscsi network. I run a small mail relay on the box, and have turned on the time service. No alarms.

[nappyrat]

yeah i kind of suspected as much given how relatively hard it is to add a 2nd nic to the vsa that this kind of setup wouldn't work.  thanks!