Examine the organization of components that are connected to the distributed switch across the hosts in a vCenter Server.
Procedure
- Navigate to the vSphere distributed switch in the vSphere Client.
- On the Configure tab, expand Settings and select Topology.
Results
By default the diagram shows up to 32 distributed port groups, 32 hosts, and 1024 virtual machines.
Example: Diagram of a Distributed Switch That Connects the VMkernel and Virtual Machines to the Network
In your virtual environment, a vSphere Distributed Switch handles VMkernel adapters for vSphere vMotion and for the management network, and virtual machines grouped. You can use the central topology diagram to examine whether a virtual machine or VMkernel adapter is connected to the external network and to identify the physical adapter that carries the data.
![Topology diagram of a distributed switch that handles VMkernel and virtual machine networking](images/GUID-E0414E54-9667-44CD-ADD9-B77F519F88D4-high.png)
What to do next
You can perform the following common tasks in the topology of the distributed switch:
- Use filters to view the networking components only for selected port groups on certain hosts, for selected virtual machines, or for a port.
- Locate, configure and migrate virtual machine networking components across host and port groups by using the Migrate Virtual Machine Networking wizard.
- Detect the virtual machine adapters that have no network assigned and move them to the selected port group by using the Migrate Virtual Machine Networking wizard.
- Handle networking components on multiple hosts by using the Add and Manage Hosts wizard.
- View the physical NIC or NIC team that carries the traffic related to a selected virtual machine adapter or VMkernel adapter.
In this way you can also view the host on which a selected VMkernel adapter resides. Select the adapter, trace the route to the associated physical NIC, and view the IP address or domain name next to the NIC.
- Determine the VLAN mode and ID for a port group. For information about VLAN modes, see VLAN Configuration.