Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
functionality available within vSphere environments through third-party distributed switches.
At the time this functionality was introduced, only a single VMware partner had a product
ready: Cisco with its Nexus 1000V. Since then, at least two other VMware partners have created
their own distributed switches, and now VMware customers have a few different options.
At the time of this writing, three third-party distributed switches were available for use with
vSphere 5.5:
Cisco Nexus 1000V
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IBM Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V
HP FlexFabric Virtual Switch 5900v
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In the following sections, we'll take a quick look at each of these options.
Cisco Nexus 1000V
The i rst third-party distributed switch, the Cisco Nexus 1000V, leverages Cisco NX-OS in a
virtual environment to allow network administrators to use a familiar, CLI-based network man-
agement environment in the vSphere environment as well as in the physical environment.
The Cisco Nexus 1000V has the following two major components:
The Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM), which executes inside the ESXi hypervisor and
replaces the standard vSwitch functionality. The VEM leverages the vSphere Distributed
Switch APIs to enable features like quality of service (QoS), private VLANs, access control
lists, NetFlow, and SPAN.
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The Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM), which is a Cisco NX-OS instance running as a VM
(note that Cisco also sells a hardware appliance, called the Nexus 1010, that can provide a
Nexus 1000V VSM). The VSM controls multiple VEMs as one logical modular switch. All
coni guration is performed through the VSM and propagated to the VEMs automatically
through a management link with vCenter Server. The Nexus 1000V supports redundant
VSMs, a coni guration with both a primary VSM and a secondary VSM.
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Although the Nexus 1000V uses the Cisco “Nexus” brand name, it is interoperable with any
upstream physical switch from any vendor; it does not require physical Cisco Nexus switches.
Of course, the features that are supported will vary based on the upstream physical switches, so
keep in mind that some Nexus 1000V features may not work with all physical switches.
For more detailed information on the Cisco Nexus 1000V, please refer to Cisco's website at
IBM Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V
The IBM Distributed Virtual Switch (DVS) 5000V was the second third-party distributed switch
to become available for vSphere environments.
Like the Cisco Nexus 1000V, the IBM DVS 5000V employs a two-part architecture:
The DVS 5000V Data Path Module (DPM) is embedded in the ESXi hypervisor and replaces
the standard virtual switching functionality found there. The DPM supports features like
QoS, sFlow v5, RADIUS, TACACS+, private VLANs, local VM-to-VM trafi c control using
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