VEM data plane
There is a 1:1 mapping between hypervisor and VEM. VEM replaces the virtual switch by performing the following functions:
Advanced networking and security
Switching between directly attached VMs
Uplinking to the rest of the network
You can install only one version of VEM on an ESXi host at any given point of time. Please have a look at the following figure for more details:
VEM functions
The following are the various functions of VEM:
Advanced networking and security
Switching between directly attached VMs
Uplink to the rest of the network
Unlike conventional Nexus switches, each line card has its own Media Access Control (MAC) table that goes through the same process as conventional switches.
Ingress: Traffic that comes inbound towards the interfaces of the N1KV switch
L2 Lookup: A process that handles the packets after the parser engine has parsed the initial packet delivery
Egress: Traffic goes out of the interfaces of the N1KV switch
