Creating a new standard switch

[BrettRoy]

I created a new standard Vswitch through Service Console. Although it is not connected to any devices it shows used ports as 1. When I link this Vswitch to a vmnic it shows the used ports as 3. Can somebody explain what are these used ports in this scenario? I am assuming the used ports should be 1 after linking to a uplink vmnic. But it shows 3. Please help

[dnetz]

Perhaps this answers your question? http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2091

The esxcfg-vswitch -l command shows the true number of ports on the virtual switch; however, not all of these ports are available because some of them are reserved for VMkernel. VirtualCenter shows the number of usable ports.

[BrettRoy]

Thanks for the answer.

I agree that esxcfg-vswitch -l will give all the information and some ports are reserved. But I wonder when i create a new vswitch with out any uplink or VMs it shows used ports as 1. When an uplink is enabled it shows used ports as 3. I am not able to understand how the used ports is counted in a new switch without VMs and how it is counted after enabling uplink.

[dnetz]

I think that's the point, they are reserved for vmkernel and some tools shows the number of ports available for VM's and some shows the total including the reserved ones. There are several things that differ between physical switches and virtual ones and this is one of those things.