Can't communicate between standard switch and DVS on same host

[petermie]

We have two hosts (6.5 U1) with a quad port NICs that are partitioned to 8 virtual NICS, so for example vmnic0 is the same physical port as vmnic4, vmnic1 is the same as vmnic5, etc. We have a DVS with a port group on our main VLAN (say 200) on vmnic0 and a standard switch also on VLAN 200 on vmnic4 (so same physical port to the switch) on both hosts. I've noticed the following scenario:

VM1 (standard switch) & VM2 (DVS) are on host 1, VM3 (standard switch) & VM4 (DVS) are on host 2

VM1 -> VM2 can't communicate (NOT OK)

VM1 -> VM3 can communicate (OK)

VM1 -> VM4 OK

VM2 -> VM1 NOT OK

VM2 -> VM3 OK

VM2 -> VM4 OK

VM3 -> VM1 OK

VM3 -> VM2 OK

VM3 -> VM4 NOT OK

...

So, VMs on the same host can't communicate between the DVS and standard switch even though they are on the same VLAN & underlying switching hardware. VMs can communicate between hosts no matter whether or not either is on DVS or standard switch. Is this expected behavior? It doesn't make sense to me

[Mattallford]

Hi there,

can you post some esxcli outputs for the switches and port groups, or some screenshots from the vSphere Web client of the physical NICs and the switches.

Can VM1 and VM2 communicate ok if both VMs are on the port group on the vSwitch and also on the same port group on the distributed switch?

On a side note what is the reason for using NIC partitioning?

Cheers, Matt.