vDS vs Lofical Switch

[ajaynwops]

Hey Guys,

small doubt in my mind if someone can clarify. Before NSX there were two things either you create VSS or VDS ,In couple of documents i can see is mentioned we need VDS in NSX are we referring to logical switch ?

I would appreciate if someone can give me steps .

Ajay

[NealeC]

Hi Ajay,

VSS and VDS are standard switch or Distributed switch.

A standard switch only gets created on the ESXi host you create it on and the port groups are not created on any other hosts, you have to do that manually.

A Distributed switch, requires vSphere Enterprise Plus license but now included if you buy NSX, is a Distributed switch across any ESXi host you add to it.  Then if you create a port group they are visible to all hosts which are connected to the VDS.

Here is an overview

VMware KB: Overview of vNetwork Distributed Switch concepts

and a VMware video describing the VDS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlL_C7ixOXM

[ajaynwops]

Hey Thanks for responding.

Let me put my doubt in other words. lets say i have 5 Esxi Hosts and i can go for Enterprise Plus licence to create VDS top of that but when i want to do NSX networking ,do we still create vDS ?. VM's we attach to logical switches if i understood that correctly.,

Ajay

[NealeC]

Hello Ajay,

Yes NSX requires the VDS functionality to work.

A Logical Switch is tied to a Transport Zone, a Transport Zone represents a collection of ESXi hosts that can communicate with each other by leveraging an interface and a defined VTEP.

So the hosts must have consistent networking and support VXLAN.  VSS don't support VXLAN.

Even if it were possible, you would not want to try and manage the hosts using VSS and manually updating port groups and configs.

So yes, you still need to utilise, configure and license the VDS.

Chris