Knowledge Base

To utilize NIC teaming, two or more network adapters must be uplinked to a virtual switch. The main advantages of NIC teaming are:

• Increased network capacity for the virtual switch hosting the team.
• Passive failover in the event one of the adapters in the team goes down.

1. Highlight the host and click the Configuration tab.
2. Click the Networking link.
3. Click Properties next to the virtual switch.
4. On the Network Adapters tab, click Add.
5. Select the appropriate (unclaimed) network adapter(s) and click Next.
6. Ensure that the selected adapter(s) are under Active Adapters.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Finish.
9. On the Ports tab, highlight the name of the port group and click Edit.
10. Click the NIC Teaming tab.
11. The default load balancing policy is Route based on the originating virtual port ID. If the physical switch is using link aggregation, Route based on IP hash load balancing must be used. For more information, see ESX/ESXi host requirements for link aggregation (1001938) and the VMware Virtual Networking Concepts guide.

Observe these guidelines to choose the correct NIC Teaming policy:

• If the route is based on the originating port ID: Choose an uplink based on the virtual port where the traffic entered the virtual switch.
• If the route is based on an IP hash: Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source and destination IP addresses of each packet. For non-IP packets, whatever is at those offsets is used to compute the hash.
• If the route is based on a source MAC hash: Choose an uplink based on a hash of the source Ethernet.
• If you use explicit failover order: Always use the highest order uplink from the list of Active adapters which passes failover detection criteria.

Note: IP-based teaming requires that the physical switch be configured with EtherChannel. For all other options, EtherChannel should be disabled.