VMWare Host Profiles -Part 3

In my last series of post on Host Profiles, We have gone through the Steps how to capture the host profile from the reference host and Visited few of the Policy settings in Host Profile.

VMware Host Profiles -Part 1

VMware Host Profiles – Part 2

Let’s take the detailed look at the Netowork Configuration settings of the Host Profiles in this section. Below is the detailed screenshot of the settings which are comprised under the Network configuration section of Host Profiles.

1.vSwitch

2.Virtual Machine Port Group

3.Host Port Group

4.Service Console Port Group

5.DNS Configuration

6.IP Route Configuration

7.Service Console IP route Configuration

8.Physical NIC Configuration

9.vNetwork Distributed Switch (DVSwitch)

10.Service console virtual NIC (DVSwicth)

11.Host VirtualNIC (DVSwitch)

The Network configuration settings of the reference host in the host profile are abstracted  from the Network configuration of the ESX host. Please refer the below snapshot. My ESX host have 3 Virtual switch named (vSwitch0, vSwitch1 & vSwitch 2). If you have noticed the above screenshot of Host Profiles shows the captured information for my 3 virtual switches in my ESX host.

Since the Network Configuration section of host profiles is a huge topic, let’s look at the vSwitch configuration settings for the Host Profiles in this part of the post.

vSwitch Settings comprised into 4 child settings. It ensures that the virtual switch configuration of ESX hosts is consistent across the environment by applying this profile.

1.vSwitch (Vswitch Name)

2.Link Configuration

3.Number of Ports

4. Network Policy Configuration

1.vSwitch

Determine when the vSwitch will be created

We can edit these parts of the setting to define the condition when the particular virtual switch will be created.

A. Always Create the object

This setting is the default one and captured as part of the Host Profile.

B. Create if the link Specification results in a certain minimum number of physical NICs.

 We define the minimum number of physical NICS to check to create this particular virtual switch.

2.Link Configuration

Under Link Configuration, There are 2 settings 

1. Physical Network Adapters

2. Beacon Configuration

There are 6 policy settings under the Physical Network Adapters policy of Link Configuration section.

A.Choose Physical NICs with the specified Name:-

It is a default which is captured with the host profile from the reference host according to the vmnic connected to the virtual switch of the ESX host. If you have noticed the  above Network configuration screenshot of the ESX host. My vSwicth0 is uplinked with vmnic0. So the Host profile captured the information as per my ESX host network configuration.

B. Choose Physical NIcs Operating at Higher than a minimum bandwidth and duplexity criteria

We define the policy settings to choose the NIC for this virtual switch which matches the NIC bandwidth settings configured with this setting.

C. Choose Physical NICs with the given link state

Attaches physical network adapters with the given link state.

D. Choose Physical NICs with the specified Cardinality

Selects a number of network adapters that pass the other policy options. This policy option is used last if it is one of multiple criteria within a composite option

E.Choose Physical NICs based on their position in the PCI Namespace

With this setting, we define to choose the physical adapter for the virtual switch based on their position in the PCI namespace.

F. Compose one or more policy options for the result

This setting allows the user to specify any combination of name, minimum bandwidth, duplexity, link state, and cardinality settings which we have discussed above.  Example, In the below example I have defined in the host profile to choose the physical network adapter in which NIC minimum bandwidth is 1000 Mbps and also based on the given link state.

Beacon Configuration

A. Fixed Beacon Configuration

B. User must explicitly choose the policy option

3. Number of Ports

Number of ports on the vSwitch for the fixed configuration.

With this setting, we can define the number of ports to be created in the vSwitch while applying this host profile to the destination host.

4. Network Policy Configuration

Network Policy Configuration section of host profiles contains 5 sub settings

A.Network Security Policy

B. Traffic Shaping

C. NIC teaming

D.NIC ordering

E. Network failover policy

A. Network Security Policy

Apply the Specified Security Policy:-

We can define the Security policy for the virtual switch to apply it on the destination ESX host via host profiles. This post is to review the host profile network settings. If you would like to look a the security policy of virtual switches. Please refer my post interview questions -networking

Use the default values:-

To use the default security policy for the virtual switch.

B. Traffic Shaping

The Traffic shaping policy settings of the reference host in the host profile are abstracted  from the traffic shaping settings of the ESX host.

Apply Specified traffic shaping policy

By default, the traffic shaping policy is disabled.So, the host profile of the reference host didn’t capture any information about the traffic shaping policy.

We can manually define the traffic shaping policy by entering the values.
Average Bandwidth in Kbps
Peak Bandthwidth in Kbps
Burst size in Kilobytes

Use the Default Values;-

By default, the traffic shaping policy is disabled

C. NIC Teaming

The NIC Teaming policy settings of the reference host in the host profile are abstracted  from the NIC teaming settings of the virtual switch of the ESX host. If you would like to look at how the each load balancing policy works. Please refer my post interview questions -networking

Apply Specified NIC teaming policy


As per the above snapshot, my virtual switch configured with the load balancing policy of “Route based on the originating virtual port ID”. So, host profile captured it as ” loadbalance_srcid”. We can manually define the policy settings in Host profile.

Use the Default Values

D.NIC ordering

Specify minimum number of NICs in a Category :-

NIC ordering sorted on bandwidth:-

Use Default Values

NIC ordering is explicitly specified

Specify the list of NICs which you want as active and Standby NICs

E. Network failover policy

Fixed Failover criteria

Specify the criteria for detecting NIC failures

Use the default Values

.These are the settings which all are covered under the vSwitch section of the Network configuration part of host profiles. I will cover other portions of a network configuration section  in my upcoming posts.

Thanks For Reading !!!!