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Configuring ESXi VM Networks

Updated: June 1, 2023

By: NAKIVO Team

In the previous posts, we took a look at setting up VMkernel networks, including

storage and vMotion. Now, we discuss configuring ESXi networks for the VMs
themselves. VM networks provide connectivity of the VMs to the production network.
Let’s walk through how these are configured.

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VM Networks Configuration
You can easily set up VM Networks on your first vSwitch by adding additional port
groups. Alternatively, if you have additional network adapters available, you can create
a new vSwitch for VM traffic. What are the use cases for each of these methods?

Simply adding port groups with additional VLAN tags lets you use the same number of
physical network adapters in your server. This way, you don’t need a physical network
cable connected for every single different network you want ESXi to interact with.
However, you may want to make sure certain types of traffic are physically separate
from other types of traffic. For example, you may want to use a separate vSwitch
along with separate network cards for carrying DMZ traffic in a certain host. This is not
required in a technical sense, but may be preferable in certain compliance situations.

To add a new Virtual Machine network, you can either create a new vSwitch and then
add a port group, or simply add a new port group.

1. Click on the Add Networking link in the upper right hand corner.

2. Select Virtual Machine as the Connection Type for the new Port Group.
3. Here, input the VLAN ID for the VLAN you want your Virtual Machine network to
communicate with.
4. Click Next through the prompts, then click Finish to create the new port group.
5. Here, you can see the newly created “WorkstationVLAN” port group in the vSwitch
properties.

Thoughts
Configuring the networking on an ESXi host is critical for making things work
smoothly, whether for a standalone host or an ESXi host that is a part of a cluster in
vCenter. We have now discussed how to create three different types of networks that
are common in most environments – storage, vMotion, and Virtual Machine networks.
Each of these different types of networks serves a purpose in our VMware
environment, allowing traffic to flow for the various features and components of
VMware ESXi.

With the networks configured, in the next post we discuss joining the host(s) to
vCenter, as well as building a Datacenter and Cluster. The post also touches on the
various options that go along with a vSphere cluster, such as High Availability (HA) and
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS).
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VM Networks Configuration

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