Overview

Network virtualization decouples network services from dedicated network hardware. The underlying hardware provides basic packet forwarding, while the virtualization layer provides switching, routing, security groups, and other services with behavior comparable to a physical network.

ZSphere represents virtual networks through distributed switches and distributed port groups. A distributed switch spans multiple hosts in a data center and provides centralized deployment, management, and monitoring of the virtual network. A distributed port group is a collection of virtual ports on a distributed switch. VMs in the same port group share a consistent network configuration, allowing them to migrate between hosts without changing that configuration. Distributed port groups also provide distributed DHCP services, and DNS can be configured for VMs to support different data center network scenarios.