VMware Fling - ESXi Mac Learning dvFilter

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

MAC learning functionality solves performance problems for use cases like nested ESX. This ESX extension adds functionality to ESX to support MAC-learning on vswitch ports. For most ESX use cases, MAC learning is not required as ESX knows exactly which MAC address will be used by a VM. However, for applications like running nested ESX, i.e. ESX as a guest-VM on ESX, the situation is different. As an ESX VM may emit packets for a multitude of different MAC addresses, it currently requires the vswitch port to be put in “promiscuous mode”. That however will lead to too many packets delivered into the ESX VM, as it leads to all packets on the vswitch being seen by all ESX VMs. When running several ESX VMs, this can lead to very significant CPU overhead and noticeable degradation in network throughput. Combining MAC learning with “promiscuous mode” solves this problem.

Which virtual switch to select in vSphere 5

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an archived article. It was originally published on VMGuru . This article may contain outdated information.

There are a lot of choices to be made for networking in VMware vSphere 5. We’ve got the good ol’ vSwith, vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) and finally the Nexus 1000V from Cisco. But what is the best one?

Networking on A.J. Elsinga

VMware Fling - ESXi Mac Learning dvFilter

Which virtual switch to select in vSphere 5