vSphere 6 Networking Deep Dive

Virtual Networking Connectivity Challenges

• Hypervisor connectivity challenges
• NIC-per-VM design
• Hypervisor virtual switch
• Combining networking and storage connectivity

vSphere Virtual Switch

• vSphere virtual switch conceptual model, characteristics and terminology
• vSphere Standard and Distributed switch
• Host proxy switch
• Multiple switches per ESXi host

Redundant Uplinks and Failover

• Failover configuration in vSphere virtual switch
• Active-Standby scenarios
• Uplink failure detection with beaconing and link state tracking

Uplink Teaming and Load Balancing

• Uplink teaming concepts
• Loop prevention in vSphere virtual switch
• Load balancing algorithms and issues
• Link aggregation with IP-hash-based load balancing and LAG groups
• MLAG challenges

Network-side VM Isolation

• VLAN support in vSphere virtual switches
• External switch tagging, virtual switch tagging and virtual guest tagging
• Private VLANs

vSphere Kernel Adapters

• VMkernel Adapter 101
• VMkernel adapter failover and load balancing
• Multiple TCP/IP stacks in vSphere 6

Live VM migration

• vMotion behind the scenes
• LAN-side implications of vMotion
• Storage vMotion and vMotion without shared storage
• Multi-NIC vMotion
• vMotion across routed subnets and long-distance vMotion
• Integration with ToR switches
• vSphere Fault Tolerance

vSphere QoS

• Traffic classifying and marking
• Traffic shaping
• Network I/O Control and bandwidth admission control

vSphere Network Security Features

• Layer-2 security features
• Access lists in vSphere 6
• VMsafe Network API
• Distributed firewall and third-party plugins for NSX for vSphere

vSphere Networking Performance Enhancements

• DirectPath I/O and SR-IOV
• Jumbo frames
• TCP offloads

vSphere Network Management and Monitoring

• Configuration Export and Restore
• Management Network Rollback and Recovery
• vDS Health Checks and topology discovery
• Packet capturing and port mirroring

Cisco-Specific vSphere Features

• Adapter FEX and VM-FEX
• Cisco Nexus 1000V
• Integration of Nexus 1000V with Dynamic Fabric Automation (DFA)