Guest OS networking considerations

Please refer to Chapter 3, Networking Performance Design, where the Selecting the correct virtual network adapter recipe talks about the tradeoff factors in choosing the correct adapter.

For the best performance, use the vmxnet3 network adapter for operating systems in which it is supported. The virtual machine must use virtual hardware version 7 or later, and VMware Tools must be installed in the guest operating system.

• If vmxnet3 is not supported in your guest operating system, use enhanced vmxnet (which requires VMware Tools). Both enhanced vmxnet (vmxnet2) and vmxnet3 support jumbo frames for better performance.

• If vmxnet2 is not supported in your guest operating system, use the flexible device type. This device type automatically converts each vlance adapter to a vmxnet adapter if VMware Tools are installed.

For the best networking performance, use network adapters that support hardware features such as TCP checksum offload, TCP segmentation offload, and...