How many network interface cards are needed to add in virtual machine settings when installing vSmart controller on VMware vSphere ESXi Hypervisor software?

A single NIC cannot simultaneously handle both management and transport plane traffic, which are logically and often physically separated in SD-WAN deployments.

The vSmart controller VM requires exactly two NICs: eth0 serves as the out-of-band management interface for vManage connectivity, and eth1 serves as the transport-side interface for establishing OMP control connections with WAN Edge routers over the DTLS/TLS overlay. These two interfaces must be added in the VM settings before powering on the controller.

Three NICs exceed the required count for vSmart; the controller does not need a third interface for standard operation.

Four NICs are not required for vSmart and would represent unnecessary over-provisioning of virtual network adapters.