VMware vSphere Networking: Standard and Distributed vSwitch

Set up a virtualized practice environment with vmware workstation, workstation player, or virtualbox, deploying two esxi hosts and a vcenter server on vmnet zero.

Explore a VMware lab environment for managing vSwitch networking in vSphere 7, detailing distributed virtual switch setup across multiple ESXi hosts, the role of vCenter, DNS, and a production cluster.

Explore configuring the vSphere standard switch (VSS) and its capabilities. Learn to create and delete a standard switch, add virtual NICs, VMkernel ports, and port groups for scalable networking.

Explore how the vSphere standard switch (vss) connects virtual machines on a single ESXi host, enabling layer 2 traffic and uplinks to physical networks.

Learn how the vSphere standard switch (VSwitch) handles VM Network and VM kernel ports on an ESXi host, with traffic staying local and outbound traffic using the physical NIC.

Create and delete a vSphere standard switch, add vmkernel ports, attach to virtual machines, and test connectivity across ESXi hosts.

Verify vSwitch configuration by inspecting port groups, VM kernel port groups, adapter details, MAC addresses, and IP settings, while using snapshots to roll back changes in your vSphere lab.

Configure VMkernel ports on ESXi hosts to support management and core vSphere services (vMotion, iSCSI, NFS, vSAN, vSphere replication) with redundant VMkernel adapters on standard switches.

Configure vSwitch security policies by enabling or overriding promiscuous mode, mac address changes, and forged transmits; default settings reject promiscuous mode, with mirroring needed for troubleshooting.

Install Cisco IOS in your lab using VMware Workstation, import vmdk/ovf files, configure a net zero adapter and serial port for SSH, assign 192.168.10.4 to g0/0, and save with startup-config.

configure vlan ten as a router subinterface with dot1q encapsulation and 10.1.1.1, then test ping, and map vlan ten to the esxi vmkernel with 10.2

Apply egress traffic shaping on a standard switch with override to set average bandwidth per virtual machine, peak bandwidth, and burst size, shaping dns and vcenter traffic while monitoring performance.

Configure NIC teaming and failover on vSwitch port groups, choose load balancing methods (IP hash, source, MAC, originating port), and set failover detection, notify switches, and failback.

Explore NIC teaming options in vSphere 7 to balance virtual machine traffic across multiple uplinks, including route based on originating port ID, source MAC hash, and IP hash.

Configure CDP on VMware vSphere vSwitch to view Cisco device and port ID, TTL, and IP addresses, learn the four operational modes, and compare with LLDP.

Compare two Cisco link aggregation methods for vSwitch networking: iSCSI with two vNics on a trunked switch via a port channel, and dual switches for redundancy.

Explore the capabilities of the vSphere distributed switch, compare it to the standard switch, and learn to configure DV switches, port groups, uplinks, VM kernel adapters, Lacp, and use cases.

Explain how the vSphere distributed switch centralizes configuration, monitoring, and policy for virtual networks, enabling seamless vMotion, NetFlow, PVLANs, inbound and outbound shaping, port mirroring, and API-driven management.

Differentiate between the standard switch (VSS) and the distributed switch (VDS), comparing per-ESXi-host configuration with centralized management, VLAN support, outbound and inbound traffic shaping, VM port blocking, and API access.

Explore how to design and implement a vSphere distributed switch, creating production and storage DV switches, configuring uplinks and DV port groups, and enabling version 7 features.

Add ESXi hosts to a distributed virtual switch, assign uplinks across hosts, and manage VMkernel adapters while noting potential temporary network disruption and upcoming migrations.

Create a new distributed virtual port group named server on the production distributed switch and connect future virtual machines using the vSphere client.

Configure dv uplink groups by adding uplink adapters to distributed virtual switches, migrate VM NICs to the new dv switch, and assign uplinks across all hosts.

Explore the vSphere distributed switch and DV port group settings, including uplinks, MTU, CDP/LLDP, NetFlow, and static versus ephemeral port bindings.

Create a storage distributed virtual switch in the vSphere environment, configure two uplinks and a storage port group, assign to ESXi hosts, and test connectivity with Windows Server 2019 VM.

Configure and remove VMkernel adapters on a distributed switch by creating management and server port groups, attaching adapters to multiple ESXi hosts, and applying port group assignments across the cluster.

Migrate the VM kernel zero from the standard switch to the distributed virtual switch by assigning it to the management port group, preserving its IP address.

Migrate virtual machines to the management port group and server port group on the distributed switch, using bulk and per virtual machine migrations.

Centralize vSphere network configuration with the distributor switch to standardize policies across hosts, configure port groups and LACP, and enable span, Urs Span, NetFlow v10, SNMP for scalable operations.

Configure lacp on the Cisco switch before enabling it in vSphere to ensure switch signaling, bind interfaces from 1g to 2g or 10g to 20g, and verify with channel commands.

Configure lacp on a vds to aggregate multiple physical NICs, select active or passive mode, and align load balancing with the physical switch through lag creation and migration.

Configure the dvPort group blocking policy to quickly isolate malware by blocking all ports in a group or selectively block individual ports through the vSphere client.

Explore configuring load balancing and failover policies for vSphere distributed switch port groups, including five routing options—originating virtual port, source MAC hash, IP hash, physical NIC load, and explicit failover.

Configure VLANs in vSphere by setting the VLAN ID at the port group. Configure uplink VLAN trunking and PVLANs (promiscuous, isolated, community) in the vSphere client.

Configure traffic shaping policies in vSphere to throttle excess bandwidth, with per-port overrides and inbound or outbound shaping on distributed virtual switch port groups, and compare with standard switch limitations.

Enable TCP segmentation offload across the entire data path—from ESXi host VMkernel to VMXNET3 adapters and guest OS—to boost network performance for workloads with strict latency requirements.

Learn how vSphere networking rollback (formerly vDS auto rollback) restores distributed switches and port groups from backups or previous configurations, with ESXi console recovery options as a last resort.

Enable network health check to monitor the vSphere distributed switch and physical switch configurations, triggering alerts for VLAN trunk range, MTU, and teaming policy mismatches.

Enable the provisioning service on VMkernel adapters to support long distance vMotion, moving running VMs between data centers with zero downtime, meeting 150-millisecond round trip time and enterprise plus licensing.