vSwitch configuration and load-balancing policy selection are major parts of a virtual infrastructure design. Selecting a load-balancing policy can have impact on the performance of the virtual machine and can introduce additional requirements at the physical network layer. Not only do I spend lots of time discussing the various options during design sessions, it is [...]

In vSphere 4.1 a new network Load Based Teaming (LBT) algorithm is available on the distributed virtual switch dvPort groups. The option “Route based on physical NIC load” takes the virtual machine network I/O load into account and tries to avoid congestion by dynamically reassigning and balancing the virtual switch port to physical NIC mappings. [...]