Creating a Trunk between an HP ProCurve Switch and VMware ESX/ESXi

According to VMware documentation, ESX/ESXi currently does not support LACP. Therefore, the only link aggregation mode in the ProCurve that works with ESX/ESXi is the static trunk mode.

On the ProCurve side, configure the trunk as a static trunk:

HP-5406zl(config)# trunk a1-a3 trk1 trunk

On the VMWare side, use NIC Teaming and the Load Balancing option of “Route based on IP hash”:

- Click the ESX/ESXi host
- Click the Configuration tab
- Click the Networking link
- Click Properties
- Click the Virtual Switch in the Ports tab, then click Edit
- Click the NIC Teaming tab
- From the Load Balancing dropdown menu, select Route based on ip hash
- Verify that there are two or more network adapters listed under Active Adapters.

Reference: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1&externalId=1004048