ESXi lets you shape outbound traffic on standard switches or port groups. The traffic shaper restricts the network bandwidth available to any port, but you can also configure it to temporarily allow bursts of traffic to flow through a port at higher speeds.

The traffic shaping policies that you set at switch or port group level are applied at each individual port that participates in the switch or port group. For example, if you set an average bandwidth of 100000 Kbps on a standard port group, 100000 Kbps averaged over time can pass through each port that is associated with the standard port group.

Procedure

  1. In the vSphere Web Client, navigate to the host.
  2. On the Configure tab, expand Networking and select Virtual switches.
  3. Navigate to the traffic shaping policy on the standard switch or port group.
    Option Action
    vSphere Standard Switch
    1. Select a standard switch from the list.
    2. Click Edit settings.
    3. Select Traffic shaping.
    Standard port group
    1. Select the standard switch where the port group resides.
    2. In the topology diagram, select a standard port group.
    3. Click Edit settings.
    4. Select Traffic shaping and select Override next to the options to override.
  4. Configure traffic shaping policies.
    Option Description
    Status Enables setting limits on the amount of networking bandwidth allocated for each port that is associated with the standard switch or port group.
    Average Bandwidth Establishes the number of bits per second to allow across a port, averaged over time (the allowed average load).
    Peak Bandwidth The maximum number of bits per second to allow across a port when it is sending a burst of traffic. This setting tops the bandwidth used by a port whenever it is using its burst bonus. This parameter can never be smaller than the average bandwidth.
    Burst Size The maximum number of bytes to allow in a burst. If this parameter is set, a port might gain a burst bonus when it does not use all its allocated bandwidth. Whenever the port needs more bandwidth than the average bandwidth specifies, the port can temporarily transmit data at a higher speed if a burst bonus is available. This parameter tops the number of bytes that can accumulate in the burst bonus and can be transferred at a higher speed.
  5. For each traffic shaping policy (Average Bandwidth, Peak Bandwidth, and Burst Size), enter a bandwidth value.
  6. Click OK.