What does VLAN off-loading is doing?

[differentthinki]

Good morning (Germany) everyone,

I just read trough the enhencments of vmxnet3 within vSphere4 but I didn't find any further information about VLAN off-loading.

I just have an idea what it could do - but I've no clue if I'm right. So hopefully somebody could explain what VLAN off-loading is doing.

Thanks in advance!

Robert

[Rockapot]

I think you are refering to TCP Offload. TCP Offload allows a VM to dump its network processing load onto the NIC of the host therby reducing the load on the hypervisor.

Its a great feature. You do require a NIC capable of this.

Carl

[RussH]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread - but I too was wondering what the term meant and had a bit of a look into it - I believe this functionality in vmxnet3 allows adding VLAN tags within the guest OS (on the NIC driver) itself.....

Cheers