6.7

Adding Hosts to a vSphere Distributed Switch
Consider preparing your environment before you add new hosts to a distributed switch.
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Create distributed port groups for virtual machine networking.
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Create distributed port groups for VMkernel services. For example, create distributed port groups for
management network, vMotion, and Fault Tolerance.
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Configure enough uplinks on the distributed switch for all physical NICs that you want to connect to
the switch. For example, if the hosts that you want to connect to the distributed switch have eight
physical NICs each, configure eight uplinks on the distributed switch.
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Make sure that the configuration of the distributed switch is prepared for services with specific
networking requirements. For example, iSCSI has specific requirements for the teaming and failover
configuration of the distributed port group where you connect the iSCSI VMkernel adapter.
You can use the Add and Manage Hosts wizard in the vSphere Web Client to add multiple hosts at a
time.
Managing Network Adapters on a vSphere Distributed Switch
After you add hosts to a distributed switch, you can connect physical NICs to uplinks on the switch,
configure virtual machine network adapters, and manage VMkernel networking.
If some hosts on a distributed switch are associated to other switches in your data center, you can
migrate network adapters to or from the distributed switch.
If you migrate virtual machine network adapters or VMkernel adapters, make sure that the destination
distributed port groups have at least one active uplink, and the uplink is connected to a physical NIC on
the hosts. Another approach is to migrate physical NICs, virtual network adapters, and VMkernel adapters
simultaneously.
If you migrate physical NICs, leave at least one active NIC that handles the traffic of port groups. For
example, if vmnic0 and vmnic1 handle the traffic of the VM Network port group, migrate vmnic0 and leave
vmnic1 connected to the group.
Removing Hosts from a vSphere Distributed Switch
Before you remove hosts from a distributed switch, you must migrate the network adapters that are in use
to a different switch.
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To add hosts to a different distributed switch, you can use the Add and Manage Hosts wizard to
migrate the network adapters on the hosts to the new switch all together. You can then remove the
hosts safely from their current distributed switch.
vSphere Networking
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