Create a Network Resource Pool

Create network resource pools on a vSphere Distributed Switch to reserve bandwidth for a set of virtual machines.

A network resource pool provides a reservation quota to virtual machines. The quota represents a portion of the bandwidth that is reserved for virtual machine system traffic on the physical adapters connected to the distributed switch. You can set aside bandwidth from the quota for the virtual machines that are associated with the pool. The reservation from the network adapters of powered on VMs that are associated with the pool must not exceed the quota of the pool. See About Allocating Bandwidth for Virtual Machines.

Prerequisites

• Verify that vSphere Distributed Switch is version 6.0.0 and later.

• Verify that Network I/O Control on the switch is version 3.
• Verify that Network I/O Control is enabled. See Enable Network I/O Control on a vSphere Distributed Switch.
• Verify that the virtual machine system traffic has a configured bandwidth reservation. See Configure Bandwidth Allocation for System Traffic.

Procedure

1. In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to the distributed switch.
2. On the Configure tab, expand Resource Allocation.
3. Click Network resource pools.
4. Click the Add icon.
5. (Optional) Type a name and a description for the network resource pool.
6. Enter a value for Reservation quota, in Mbps, from the free bandwidth that is reserved for the virtual machine system traffic.

   The maximum quota that you can assign to the pool is determined according to the following formula:

   max reservation quota = aggregated reservation for vm system traffic - quotas of the other resource pools

   where

   • aggregated reservation for vm system traffic = configured bandwidth reservation for the virtual machine system traffic on each pNIC * number of pNICs connected to the distributed switch
   • quotas of the other pools = the sum of the reservation quotas of the other network resource pools
7. Click OK.

What to do next

Add one or more distributed port groups to the network resource pool so that you can allocate bandwidth to individual virtual machines from the quota of the pool. See Add a Distributed Port Group to a Network Resource Pool.