A consultant finishes creating a new ESXi cluster. The consultant connects to the nodes via laptop and a personal flat switch. The host/CVM network…

The issue is a VLAN configuration mismatch. The customer's switch is configured to use VLAN 23 as the native VLAN, which means it expects traffic for this VLAN to be untagged. The consultant incorrectly configured the host and CVM to tag traffic for VLAN 23. When the tagged frames from the Nutanix node arrive at the switch port, the switch, expecting untagged frames for its native VLAN, will likely drop them, causing a loss of connectivity. The host and CVM network configuration must match the switch port configuration.

A. LACP fallback would allow a non-LACP device to connect; it does not cause a connectivity failure when LACP is configured on both ends, and it is not the root cause here.
B. A vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) is not a prerequisite for basic network connectivity or LACP; this can be configured on a standard vSwitch.
C. "Route based on IP hash" is the correct load balancing policy for LACP, but the fundamental VLAN tagging mismatch would prevent connectivity before this policy even matters.

1. Nutanix University. (2023). Nutanix Hybrid Cloud Fundamentals Course. Section: Networking. "When configuring VLANs, the settings on the Nutanix host's virtual switch must match the physical switch port configuration. If a switch port is configured with a native VLAN, the corresponding virtual switch port group should not have a VLAN ID assigned (or be set to 0 for an access port)."

2. VMware vSphere Documentation. (2023). ESXi and vCenter Server Documentation. Section: vSphere Networking, "VLAN Configuration". "A native VLAN ID on a trunk port is untagged. If the ESXi host vSwitch port group is configured with a VLAN ID that matches the native VLAN, the host will tag the frames, causing the switch to drop them."

3. Nutanix. (2023). AHV Best Practices Guide. Section: Network Switch Configuration. "Ensure that the VLAN configuration on the host matches the physical switch. A common misconfiguration is tagging a VLAN on the host that the switch expects to be untagged (as a native VLAN)."