A vSphere Distributed Switch (dvSwitch or vDS) is the second type of software switch solution created by VMware. Although it does not change the way ESXi handles network connections and traffic, it allows for a drastic improvement in how the software switch configuration and management are done in a vSphere environment. One of the administrative challenges with the Standard vSwitch was that it could only be configured/managed on a per-host level. A very common misconception is that dvSwitch is a single switch that spans over multiple ESXi hosts. The fact is that it is not. All it does is offer a single management plane for all the host data planes (hidden software switches) distributed on the ESXi hosts, hence the name distributed switch:
- Distributed Port Group: This is a method to group dvPorts under a common configuration umbrella. Unlike the port groups on a...
