Networking is the backbone of any infrastructure, be it virtual or physical. It enables connection between various infrastructure components. In this chapter, we will learn how to create and configure the basic switching constructs of a vSphere network.
Before we start learning how to create these constructs, it is important to have a brief understanding of them, discussed as follows:
vSphere Standard Switch (vSwitch): This is a software switching construct local to each ESXi host that provides a network infrastructure for the virtual machines running on that server. Unlike a physical switch, a vSphere Standard Switch is not a managed switch. It doesn't learn MAC addresses and build a Content Addressable Memory (CAM) table like a physical switch, but it does know the MAC addresses of the virtual machine vNICs connected to it. Refer to the following diagram:
The vSwitch has logical ports to which a virtual machine's virtual NIC connects.