6.5.1

The vSphere Distributed Switch introduces two abstractions that you use to create consistent networking
configuration for physical NICs, virtual machines, and VMkernel services.
Uplink port group An uplink port group or dvuplink port group is defined during the creation of
the distributed switch and can have one or more uplinks. An uplink is a
template that you use to configure physical connections of hosts as well as
failover and load balancing policies. You map physical NICs of hosts to
uplinks on the distributed switch. At the host level, each physical NIC is
connected to an uplink port with a particular ID. You set failover and load
balancing policies over uplinks and the policies are automatically
propagated to the host proxy switches, or the data plane. In this way you
can apply consistent failover and load balancing configuration for the
physical NICs of all hosts that are associated with the distributed switch.
Distributed port group Distributed port groups provide network connectivity to virtual machines
and accommodate VMkernel traffic. You identify each distributed port group
by using a network label, which must be unique to the current data center.
You configure NIC teaming, failover, load balancing, VLAN, security, traffic
shaping , and other policies on distributed port groups. The virtual ports that
are connected to a distributed port group share the same properties that
are configured to the distributed port group. As with uplink port groups, the
configuration that you set on distributed port groups on vCenter Server (the
management plane) is automatically propagated to all hosts on the
distributed switch through their host proxy switches (the data plane). In this
way you can configure a group of virtual machines to share the same
networking configuration by associating the virtual machines to the same
distributed port group.
For example, suppose that you create a vSphere Distributed Switch on your data center and associate
two hosts with it. You configure three uplinks to the uplink port group and connect a physical NIC from
each host to an uplink. In this way, each uplink has two physical NICs from each host mapped to it, for
example Uplink 1 is configured with vmnic0 from Host 1 and Host 2. Next you create the Production and
the VMkernel network distributed port groups for virtual machine networking and VMkernel services.
Respectively, a representation of the Production and the VMkernel network port groups is also created on
Host 1 and Host 2. All policies that you set to the Production and the VMkernel network port groups are
propagated to their representations on Host 1 and Host 2.
To ensure efficient use of host resources, the number of distributed ports of proxy switches is dynamically
scaled up and down on hosts running ESXi 5.5 and later. A proxy switch on such a host can expand up to
the maximum number of ports supported on the host. The port limit is determined based on the maximum
number of virtual machines that the host can handle.
vSphere Networking
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