Our friends at VMware Press have offered up another free chapter from Bill Ferguson’s Official VCP5 Certification Guide on configuring vSphere standard switches.
In our discussion on vSphere networking, I will address many topics such as vSphere standard switches (vSS), vSphere distributed switches (vDS), port groups, and the properties for all of these. It’s easy to get overwhelmed in all the terminology, especially when most of the components are not something that you can see or hold in your hand. To keep from becoming overwhelmed with the technology, I want you to focus on two primary questions. The first question is, “What type of connections can I create and what do they do?” The second is, “Where does the ‘virtual world’ meet the ‘physical world,’ and how is that point of reference defined?” If you just focus on these two questions, I believe that the rest of the picture will come to your mind.
That said, this section covers configuring vSSs, configuring vDSs, and configuring vSS and vDS policies. In each section, I will explain why these should be configured, and then I will discuss how you can configure them. In addition, I will walk you through the steps to configure each of these settings.
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