6.5.1

Number of Standard Ports
To ensure efficient use of host resources on hosts running ESXi 5.5 and later, the number of ports of
standard switches are dynamically scaled up and down. A standard switch on such a host can expand up
to the maximum number of ports supported on the host.
Create a vSphere Standard Switch
Create a vSphere Standard Switch to provide network connectivity for hosts, virtual machines, and to
handle VMkernel traffic. Depending on the connection type that you want to create, you can create a new
vSphere Standard Switch with a VMkernel adapter, only connect physical network adapters to the new
switch, or create the switch with a virtual machine port group.
Procedure
1 In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to the host.
2 On the Configure tab, expand Networking and select Virtual switches.
3 Click Add host networking.
4 Select a connection type for which you want to use the new standard switch and click Next.
Option Description
VMkernel Network Adapter Create a new VMkernel adapter to handle host management traffic, vMotion,
network storage, fault tolerance, or vSAN traffic.
Physical Network Adapter Add physical network adapters to an existing or a new standard switch.
Virtual Machine Port Group for a
Standard Switch
Create a new port group for virtual machine networking.
5 Select New standard switch and click Next.
6 Add physical network adapters to the new standard switch.
a Under Assigned adapters, click Add adapters.
b Select one or more physical network adapters from the list.
c From the Failover order group drop-down menu, select from the Active or Standby failover lists.
For higher throughput and to provide redundancy, configure at least two physical network
adapters in the Active list.
d Click OK.
vSphere Networking
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