Introduction

To effectively design a virtual network infrastructure, a design architect must understand the virtual network architecture, including which features are available and how they are configured. This chapter contains recipes a design architect can use to design a virtual network architecture that provides the capacity and availability required to support the virtual infrastructure.

The logical network design includes calculating the network capacity or bandwidth required to support the virtual machines, and determining the capacity required to support VMware technologies such as vMotion and Fault Tolerance. If IP-based storage connectivity is required, the design must account for the networking necessary to support storage traffic as well.

This chapter discusses the different virtual network switch technologies available in vSphere and the different features available in each. This chapter also covers how load balancing and teaming are used to improve network utilization efficiency...