Bandwidth Allocation Parameters for System Traffic

By using several configuration parameters Network I/O Control allocates bandwidth to traffic from basic vSphere system features.

Table 1. Allocation Parameters for System Traffic

Parameter for Bandwidth Allocation	Description
Shares	Shares, from 1 to 100, reflect the relative priority of a system traffic type against the other system traffic types that are active on the same physical adapter. The amount of bandwidth available to a system traffic type is determined by its relative shares and by the amount of data that the other system features are transmitting.
Reservation	The minimum bandwidth, in Mbps, that must be guaranteed on a single physical adapter. The total bandwidth reserved among all system traffic types cannot exceed 75 percent of the bandwidth that the physical network adapter with the lowest capacity can provide. Reserved bandwidth that is unused becomes available to other types of system traffic. However, Network I/O Control does not redistribute the capacity that system traffic does not use to virtual machine placement.
Limit	The maximum bandwidth, in Mbps or Gbps, that a system traffic type can consume on a single physical adapter.