6.5.1

Table Of Contents
vSphere Network I/O Control 11
Use vSphere Network I/O Control to allocate network bandwidth to business-critical applications and to
resolve situations where several types of traffic compete for common resources.
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About vSphere Network I/O Control Version 3
vSphere Network I/O Control version 3 introduces a mechanism to reserve bandwidth for system
traffic based on the capacity of the physical adapters on a host. It enables fine-grained resource
control at the VM network adapter level similar to the model that you use for allocating CPU and
memory resources..
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Upgrade Network I/O Control to Version 3 on a vSphere Distributed Switch
If you have upgraded a vSphere Distributed Switch to version 6.0.0 without converting Network I/O
Control to version 3, you can upgrade Network I/O Control to use the enhanced model for bandwidth
allocation to system traffic and to individual virtual machines.
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Enable Network I/O Control on a vSphere Distributed Switch
Enable network resource management on a vSphere Distributed Switch to guarantee minimum
bandwidth to system traffic for vSphere features and to virtual machine traffic.
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Bandwidth Allocation for System Traffic
You can configure Network I/O Control to allocate certain amount of bandwidth for traffic generated
by vSphere Fault Tolerance, iSCSI storage, vSphere vMotion, and so on.
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Bandwidth Allocation for Virtual Machine Traffic
Version 3 of Network I/O Control lets you configure bandwidth requirements for individual virtual
machines. You can also use network resource pools where you can assign a bandwidth quota from
the aggregated reservation for the virtual machine traffic and then allocate bandwidth from the pool
to individual virtual machines.
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Move a Physical Adapter Out the Scope of Network I/O Control
Under certain conditions you might need to exclude physical adapters with low capacity from the
bandwidth allocation model of Network I/O Control version 3.
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Working with Network I/O Control Version 2
On a vSphere Distributed Switch 5.x, and on a vSphere Distributed Switch upgraded to 6.0 that does
not have Network I/O Control enhanced to version 3, you can ensure that system traffic and virtual
machines receive required bandwidth for their operation by using the resource pool model of
Network I/O Control version 2.
VMware, Inc.
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