6.5.1

Table Of Contents
The total bandwidth reservation of the virtual machines on a host cannot exceed the reserved bandwidth
that is configured for the virtual machine system traffic.
The actual limit and reservation also depends on the traffic shaping policy for the distributed port group
the adapter is connected to. For example, if a VM network adapter requires a limit of 200 Mbps and the
average bandwidth configured in the traffic shaping policy is 100 Mbps, then the effective limit becomes
100Mbps.
Figure 113. Configuration for Bandwidth Allocation for Individual Virtual Machines
Tenant A
Port Group
vmnic0
10 Gbps
Uplink Port Group
Bandwidth reservation
for VM system traffic:
0.5 Gbps
Tenant A
VM
Tenant B
VM
50 2 Gbps
0.2 Gbps
50
2 Gbps 0.3 Gbps
Tenant B
Port Group
vSphere Distributed
Switch
Total VM reservation:
Less than or equal to
the reservation for
VM system traffic
Shares
Limit Reservation
Traffic
VM
ESXi Host
VM
Bandwidth Allocation Parameters for Virtual Machine Trac
Network I/O Control version 3 allocates bandwidth to individual virtual machines based on configured
shares, reservation, and limit for the network adapters in the VM hardware settings.
Table 114. Bandwidth Allocation Parameters for a VM Network Adapter
Parameter for Bandwidth Allocation Description
Shares The relative priority, from 1 to 100, of the traffic through this VM
network adapter against the capacity of the physical adapter that
is carrying the VM traffic to the network.
Reservation The minimum bandwidth, in Mbps, that the VM network adapter
must receive on the physical adapter.
Limit The maximum bandwidth on the VM network adapter for traffic
to other virtual machines on the same or on another host.
vSphere Networking
VMware, Inc. 190