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not need any additional networking hardware and are implemented in software based on the
configuration you specify. Virtual switches are similar to physical switches in several ways:
They use same networking protocols.
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They support VLANs compatible with standard VLAN implementations.•u
They support Layer 2 forwarding.•u
They support offloading features for TCP checksum and segmentation.•u
They support Layer 2 security policies such as locking down MAC address changes.•u
The VMware virtual switch is also capable of binding multiple virtual NICs together, similar
to NIC teaming in physical servers, to offer high availability and throughput for the virtual
machines.
With more than 1,000 virtual ports per switch, you can support a large number of virtual
machines per single virtual switch. Each virtual switch is isolated, and you cannot connect
multiple virtual switches within the same vSphere host. This helps improve security for virtual
networks, in addition to the Layer 2 security features listed earlier.
You can compare the features available in VMware virtual switches at www.vmware.com/
products/vnetwork-distributed-switch/features.html.
Vne t w o r k di S t r i b u t e d Sw i t c h
With vSphere, VMware has introduced the vNetwork Distributed Switch (vDS) that aggregates
virtual switches from multiple vSphere hosts in a single distributed network switch. This elimi-
nates the restriction of managing virtual networking for each vSphere host separately, and it
simplifies network maintenance for the entire vSphere cluster. vDS provides a centralized inter-
face from VMware vCenter Server for provisioning, administration, and monitoring of virtual
networking for your entire data center. This can significantly reduce ongoing network main-
tenance activities and allow you to quickly scale up networking capacity. vDS also enables the
following features:
Network VMotion
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Bidirectional traffic shaping•u
Third-party virtual switch support with the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series virtual switch•u
Network VMotion
Network VMotion maintains virtual machine networking state (for example, counters and port
statistics) as the virtual machine moves from one host to another on a vDS. As a result, you have
a consistent view for the virtual network interface regardless of which vSphere host a virtual
machine is located on or how frequent a virtual machine is migrated by VMotion. This is very
helpful in monitoring and troubleshooting any network-related activities in large-scale vSphere
deployments.
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