create distributed switch vmware 5.5 web client

In the vSphere Web Client Home page, click on the Networking icon.

Right-click your Datacenter object in inventory then Select “New Distributed Switch”.

Give DVS name, click Next.

Choose the preferred version for your DVS. If you need to maintain compatibility with an older version of vSphere, then choose the minimum version required. For example – if you need to join a vSphere 4.1 host to this DVS, choose Distributed Switch 4.1.0. For 5.0, choose Distributed Switch 5.0.0. If you are only going to join vSphere 5.5 hosts, leave it at the default Distributed Switch 5.5.0. Note that upgrades can be done without service interruption at any point, but downgrades are not possible, so choose appropriately. Click Next to proceed.

Choose your number of uplinks, decide whether you want to enable NIOC, and whether you want a default port group to be created. Click Next to proceed. In our case:

§ We have 4 uplinks per host, all of which will be added to the DVS,

§ We want NIOC to be enabled, and

§ We will create our Distributed Virtual Port Groups after the DVS is created

Check your Setting you made during the New Distributed Switch wizard, click Finish.

In networking inventory now you should see your newly created DVS.

Create DVS Virtual Port Groups

Right-click on DVS, then click New Distributed Port Group

Give Name for Port Group, click Next.

Choose port binding, allocation, number of ports, any specific network resource pools, and VLAN information. In our case, defaults are fine for everything except VLAN configuration since all of our traffic is coming in tagged. I’ve specified the VLAN.

Check “customize default policies configuration” checkbox and click Next.

Keep the default security settings, Click Next.

We have no specific traffic shaping requirements, keep it like that and Click Next.

Here in Teaming and Failover, we’re going to deviate from the defaults. When finished, click next.

§ Load balancing – I’ve set this to Route based on physical NIC load (Load-based Teaming or LBT). This is a common load balancing setting when using a DVS in any configuration other than Etherchannel or LACP, where you’d use Route based on IP hash. I generally prefer LBT from simplicity POV, but that’s a different discussion.

§ Failover order – I’ve set Uplinks 2 and 4 to Unused. I’ve done this to segment traffic manually by only allowing traffic from VLAN 1010 on Uplinks 1 and 3.