The networking team has requested to have a dedicated network for iSCSI traffic. This task has been assigned to the vSphere Administrator. What is the VMware-recommended way to accomplish this?

Adding static routes on each ESXi host modifies the shared default TCP/IP stack and must be repeated per host, introducing management overhead and risk of unintended routing changes for non-iSCSI VMkernel traffic.

Assigning the correct subnet to the VMkernel adapter is a necessary baseline step but does not ensure proper routing of iSCSI traffic - a gateway must also be defined to direct traffic to the correct network segment.

VMware supports custom TCP/IP stacks for specific traffic types such as vMotion and provisioning, but does not provide or recommend a dedicated iSCSI IP stack; the supported isolation method is gateway configuration at the VMkernel adapter level.

Defining a dedicated gateway directly on the iSCSI VMkernel adapter scopes the routing change to that specific VMkernel port, ensuring iSCSI packets egress through the designated network interface without altering the default TCP/IP stack gateway used by other VMkernel adapters, which is the VMware-recommended isolation approach.