vSphere 6 dvSwitch and dvPortGroup configuration

vSphere 6 Distributed switch and distributed port group configuration

 

What is a Standard Switch network?

A network with Standard Switches is a network of virtual machines running on a single physical machine that are connected logically to each other so that they can send data to and receive data from each other. A network and its associated Standard Switches provide the interface between virtual machine NICs and physical network adapters.

What is a vSphere Distributed Switch?

A vSphere Distributed Switch acts as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts. This allows virtual machines to maintain consistent network configuration as they migrate across hosts.

Distributed virtual networking configuration consists of three parts.

The first part takes place at the datacenter level, where vSphere Distributed Switches are created, and hosts and distributed port groups are added to vSphere Distributed Switches.

The second part takes place at the host level, where host ports and networking services are associated with vSphere Distributed Switches either through individual host networking configuration or using host profiles.

The third part takes place at the virtual machine level, where virtual machine NICs are connected to distributed port groups either through individual virtual machine NIC configuration or by migrating virtual machine networking from the vSphere Distributed Switch itself.

What is an uplink port group?

Uplink ports connect a vSphere Distributed Switch to physical NICs on associated ESX/ESXi hosts. The number of uplinks on a vSphere Distributed Switch is the maximum number of allowed physical connections to the vSphere Distributed Switch per host.

What is a distributed port group?

 A distributed port group is a port group associated with a vSphere Distributed Switch and specifies port configuration options for each member port. Distributed port groups define how a connection is made through the vSphere Distributed Switch to the network.

In this blog I will show you how to install distributed virtual switch on vCenter server 6, and create port groups.

As we mentioned earlier vSphere Distributed Switch acts as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts and this hosts centrally managed by vCenter server.

I will give a fairly simple step-by-step guide; just remember this is setting for lab environment.

Let’s get started!

Login to vCenter 6 server using vSphere Client then

Inventory –Networking

Right click on the data-center and select “New vSphere Distributed Switch”

Then select the version for vSphere Distributed Switch, I have only ESX 6 in my lab so I will chose vSphere Distributed Switch version 6

Give a name to your vdSwitch and number of uplink ports

Add hosts and physical adapter to the vSphere Distributed Switch, I have added the two esx servers on my lab and one physical adapter on each esx (vmnic2)

I will keep the check “Automatically create a default Port group”, but later on I will show you how to create a port group, VLAN and PVLAN

We have now completed, we can see “vSphere Distributed Switch” and “default Port group” created

Now let’s create a port group associated with vlan200

Right click on the Distributed Switch and select “New Port Group”

Give a name to your port group and chose “VLAN” from drop down list and type VLAN ID (let say 200)

And then click Finish to create, and you can see the new port group created under the Distributed Switch.

Now the third part takes place, connected the virtual machine NICs to distributed port groups.

Right click on the VM’s and select “edit Settings” and select the port group from “Network Connection” for the Network adapter.

 

Bonus

How to create a private VLAN?

Right click on the Distributed Switch and select “Edit Settings”

Click private VLAN tab and enter Private VLAN ID

Now we are creating a new Port Group associated with PVLAN

Right click on the Distributed Switch and select “New Port Group”

Give a name to your port group and chose “Private VLAN” from drop down list and chose the Private VLAN entry.

  

and then click Finish to create, and you can see the new port group created under the Distributed Switch.

Hopefully this blog meet your expectations, if you have any questions