Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5.1:
Confi guration maximums for ESXi networking components (vSphere Standard
Switches)
Configuration Item
Maximum
Ports per vSwitch
4088
Maximum ports per host (vSS/vDS)
4096
Port groups per vSwitch
512
Uplinks per vSwitch
32
Maximum active ports per host (vSS/vDS)
1016
With all the l exibility provided by the different virtual networking components, you can
be assured that whatever the physical network coni guration might hold in store, there are
several ways to integrate the virtual networking. What you coni gure today may change as the
infrastructure changes or as the hardware changes. ESXi provides enough tools and options to
ensure a successful communication scheme between the virtual and physical networks.
Working with vSphere Distributed Switches
So far our discussion has focused solely on vSphere Standard Switches (just vSwitches). Starting
with vSphere 4.0 and continuing with vSphere 5.0 and the current release, there is another
option: vSphere Distributed Switches.
Whereas vSwitches are managed per host, a vSphere Distributed Switch functions as a single
virtual switch across all the associated ESXi hosts. There are a number of similarities between a
vSphere Distributed Switch and a Standard vSwitch:
A vSphere Distributed Switch provides connectivity for VMs and VMkernel interfaces.
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A vSphere Distributed Switch leverages physical network adapters as uplinks to provide
connectivity to the external physical network.
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A vSphere Distributed Switch can leverage VLANs for logical network segmentation.
Of course, there are differences as well, but the biggest of these is that a vSphere Distributed
Switch spans multiple hosts in a cluster instead of each host having its own set of independent
vSwitches and port groups. This greatly reduces complexity in clustered ESXi environments and
simplii es the addition of new servers to an ESXi cluster.
VMware's ofi cial abbreviation for a vSphere Distributed Switch is VDS. In this chapter, we'll
use the full name (vSphere Distributed Switch), VDS, or sometimes just distributed switch to
refer to this feature.
Creating a vSphere Distributed Switch
The process of creating and coni guring a distributed switch is twofold. First, you create the
distributed switch and then you add ESXi hosts to it. To help simplify the process, vSphere
