Distributed switch configuration

[Gotzu]

I am commencing my first deployment of Distributed switches. I will do this in my lab. Can someone please share configuration guide from basics.

[daphnissov]

You're asking for a configuration guide for a vDS, just from a general perspective on how to make it work?

[srodenburg]

With all due respect, there are ton's of how-to blogs out there. And of course there is the official documentation which can be good at times 😉

[Sreec]

First of all you should have a basic understanding on DVS architecture, following a guide might not be  a good option as they directly take to configure features or do some basic break fix. Be clear with below architecture

Management plane and data plane is separated - VC handles DVS management and once host's are added to DVS every host will have data plane.Once we create a DVS,we have to define a uplink port group which is also called as dvuplink , and you need to select NIC's from each host to a uplink and configure the supported load balancing for network traffic.In a nutshell 1)Create DVS 2)Add the required host 3) Migrate the existing networks to DVS, Select required Physical NIC's and keep adding new host to existing DVS or repeat step 1-3 for new DVS.

I would highly recommend hol lab -> http://docs.hol.vmware.com/HOL-2013/hol-sdc-1302_html_en/ and https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-65-networking-guide.pdf (Page :28) for getting a solid understanding on deployment/configuration/features of DVS .

[Texiwill]

Hello,

The best advice I can give, from questions I see, is to ensure that all ESXi nodes that are participating in the VDS are all connected together in some fashion for the NICs assigned to the VDS. East west traffic connectivity between hosts is a requirement.

Best regards,