Preparing your network for using the SBC SWe involves configuring/creating a virtual switch (standard or distributed), as well as configuring/adding interfaces, hosts, and VMs as described on the following pages:
A network with standard switches consists of virtual machines running on a single physical machine which are connected logically to each other so that they can send data to and receive data from each other. A network and its associated standard switches provide the interface between virtual machine NICs and physical network adapters.
To create VMs using standard switch, refer to Creating Virtual Machine using vNetwork Standard Switch (vSwitch).
A distributed switch acts as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts allowing virtual machines to maintain consistent network configuration as they migrate across hosts.
Distributed virtual networking configuration consists of three parts. The first part occurs at the datacenter level, where distributed switches are created, and hosts and distributed port groups are added to distributed switches. The second part occurs at the host level, where host ports and networking services are associated with distributed switches either through individual host networking configuration or using host profiles. the third part occurs at the virtual machine level, where virtual machine NICs are connected to distributed port groups either through individual virtual machine NIC configuration or by migrating virtual machine networking from the distributed switch itself.
To create VMs using distributed switch, refer to Creating Virtual Machine using vSphere Distributed Switch.