Chapter 5 – Virtual Networking

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses virtual switches, physical and virtual NICs, bonded physical NICs, MAC addressing, Port Groups and VLANs, networking tools, and firewall possibilities. This chapter also discusses advanced network configurations and possible solutions. There are many possible networking configurations that can enhance network communication, provide redundancy, and increase security for the production of virtual machines. Like a physical switch or hub, a virtual switch has a certain number of ports into which one can plug the virtual NIC of the virtual machines. A virtual switch has 32 logical ports; thus, it can support a maximum of 32 virtual machines per switch. Within a virtual environment, physical NICs belong to one's ESX server and can be bound to virtual switches or the service console. There are also virtual NICs which attach virtual machines to virtual switches. ESX Server should have a minimum of two physical NICs. During the ESX Server installation process, one of the physical NICs will be allocated exclusively to the ESX console. It is through this ESX Server Service Console NIC that all connections to the MUI are made, as well as SCP, SSH, or any other tool to access the ESX Server's file system. The other physical NIC will be dedicated to the virtual machines.