To manage the networking of your environment by using the vSphere Distributed Switch, you must associate the host with the switch. Connect the physical NICs, VMkernel adapters, and virtual machine network adapters of the host to the distributed switch.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that enough uplinks are available on the distributed switch to assign to the physical NICs that you want to connect to the switch.

  • Verify that at least one distributed port group is available on the distributed switch.

  • Verify that the distributed port group has active uplinks configured in its teaming and failover policy.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Client, select Networking and navigate to the distributed switch.
  2. From the Actions menu, select Add and Manage Hosts.
  3. On the Select task page, select Add hosts, and click NEXT.
  4. On the Select hosts page, click New hosts, select the hosts in your data center, click OK, and then click NEXT.
  5. On the Manage physical adapters page, configure physical NICs on the distributed switch.

    1. From the On other switches/unclaimed list, select a physical NIC.

      If you select physical NICs that are already connected to other switches, they are migrated to the current distributed switch.

    2. Click Assign uplink.

    3. Select an uplink.

    4. Click OK.

  6. Click NEXT.
  7. On the Manage VMkernel adapters page, configure VMkernel adapters.

    1. Select a VMkernel adapter and click Assign port group.

    2. Select a distributed port group.

      For example, DPortGroup.

    3. Click OK.

  8. Click NEXT.