You can shape both inbound and outbound traffic on vSphere distributed port groups or distributed ports. The traffic shaper restricts the network bandwidth for any port in the group, but might also be configured to temporarily allow “bursts” of traffic to flow through a port at higher speeds.

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

Prerequisites

To override a policy on distributed port level, enable the port-level override option for this policy. See Configure Overriding Networking Policies on Port Level.

Procedure

  1. On the vSphere Client Home page, click Networking and navigate to the distributed switch.
  2. Navigate to the Traffic Shaping policy for the distributed port group or port.
    Option Action
    Distributed port group
    1. From the Actions menu, select Distributed Port Group > Manage Distributed Port Groups.
    2. Select Traffic shaping and click Next.
    3. Select the port group and click Next.
    Distributed port
    1. On the Networks tab, click Distributed Port Groups and double-click a distributed port group .
    2. On the Ports tab, select a port and click the Edit distributed port settings icon.
    3. Select Traffic shaping.
    4. Select Override next to the properties to override.
  3. Configure traffic shaping policies.
    Note: The traffic is classified to ingress and egress according to the traffic direction in the switch, not in the host.
    Option Description
    Status Enable either Ingress traffic shaping or Egress traffic shaping by using the Status drop-down menus.
    Average Bandwidth Establishes the number of bits per second to allow across a port, averaged over time, that is, the allowed average load.
    Peak Bandwidth The maximum number of bits per second to allow across a port when it is sending/sending or receiving a burst of traffic. This parameter tops the bandwidth used by a port whenever it is using its burst bonus.
    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 might accumulate in the burst bonus and be transferred at a higher speed.
  4. Review your settings and apply the configuration.