6.7

Table Of Contents
About Allocating Bandwidth for Virtual Machines
Network I/O Control allocates bandwidth for virtual machines by using two models: allocation across the
entire vSphere Distributed Switch based on network resource pools and allocation on the physical
adapter that carries the traffic of a virtual machine.
Network Resource Pools
A network resource pool represents a part of the aggregated bandwidth that is reserved for the virtual
machine system traffic on all physical adapters connected to the distributed switch.
For example, if the virtual machine system traffic has 0.5 Gbps reserved on each 10 GbE uplink on a
distributed switch that has 10 uplinks, then the total aggregated bandwidth available for VM reservation
on this switch is 5 Gbps. Each network resource pool can reserve a quota of this 5 Gbps capacity.
The bandwidth quota that is dedicated to a network resource pool is shared among the distributed port
groups associated with the pool. A virtual machine receives bandwidth from the pool through the
distributed port group the VM is connected to.
By default, distributed port groups on the switch are assigned to a network resource pool, called default,
whose quota is not configured.
Figure 111. Bandwidth Aggregation for Network Resource Pools Across the Uplinks of a
vSphere Distributed Switch
Network Resource
Pool A
2 Gbps
Aggregated VM reservation across uplinks:
0.5 Gbps x 10 pNICs = 5 Gbps
Network Resource
Pool B
3 Gbps
vSphere Distributed Switch
Bandwidth
reservation for
VM system
traffic: 0.5 Gbps
Tenant A Port Group
VMVM
Tenant B Port Group
VMVM VM
ESXi Host
vmnic0
10 Gbps
vmnic1
10 Gbps
ESXi Host
vmnic0
10 Gbps
vmnic1
10 Gbps
ESXi Host
vmnic0
10 Gbps
vmnic1
10 Gbps
ESXi Host
vmnic0
10 Gbps
vmnic1
10 Gbps
ESXi Host
vmnic0
10 Gbps
vmnic1
10 Gbps
vSphere Networking
VMware, Inc. 179