VMware vSphere 7 Foundations 2.5 - vSphere 7 Networking - Port Groups

Port groups act as a wrapper for the settings you apply to one or more virtual ports on your virtual switch. In these settings, you can configure VLANs, Teaming and Failover, and many other features, overriding the settings set a the switch level. After this lecture, you'll bee able to describe and configure vSphere Port Groups on vSphere Standard Switches, and you'll be able to configure the other types of Port Group available in vSphere, vmkernel Port Groups

Glossary for Module 2

pNIC
Physical Network Interface Card - used as uplinks on vSphere switches

vNIC
Virtual Network Interface Card, the adapter in a Virtual Machine that connects to the vSphere switches

vSphere Standard Switch (vSS)
Virtual Switch type which is contained within a single host. The most common switch type. Each vSS has to be configured separately on each host.

vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS)
Virtual switch that is distributed across a number of hosts and managed by vCentre. Requires vCentre, but only needs to be configured once for the whole cluster.

Port Group
vSphere Management object used to configure ports on Virtual Switches. On vSphere Standard Switches must be configured individually on each host. On a vSphere Distributed Switch are configured once, on the cluster.

vUplink
Used to uplink a Virtual Switch to the physical network, via the pNICs.

Promiscuous Mode
A switch port mode which causes the switch port to see all of the traffic traversing the switch, not just the traffic destined for itself. Often used with Wireshark for troubleshooting or to allow security appliances to monitor and analyse traffic.

Forged Transmit
A virtual switch setting that allows a virtual machine to generate traffic using a source MAC address other than has been assigned to its interfaces. Usually combined with nested virtualisation.

Module Overview
vSphere Networking has massive flexibility, allowing you to replicate your physical network environments in vSphere. This flexibility makes it a goldmine for exam writers, so you can expect more than a few networking questions. Remember that creating multiple port groups doesn’t prevent VMs communicating with each other unless a VLAN is specified. Port groups are just a wrapper for network port settings, and don’t segregate the VMs, unless you put them in different VLANs. Also, remember that network settings like Promiscuous Mode and Teaming and Failover can be set at both the Switch level AND the Port Group level.

References
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-70-networking-guide.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.1Q

Module 2 Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEPDCIitK27Pb8TCtUi0jvV9YTnh6Vh5B

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