I have two redundant core switches I want to connect to a new vSwitch I am setting up on a VMware ESX host. The switch will have two physical NICs each of which will connect to one of the core switches. The core switches are connected.
If this was a physical switch, I would worry about connecting it to both core switches, because this would create a network loop.
Do I need to worry about this for a VMware virtual switch? VMware's documentation says it is not possible to connect two vSwitches in a loop, therefore STP is not required. However, I am worried about connecting two physical switches together via a vSwitch.
Best Answer
vSphere doesn't forward packets like a switch does, so it cannot create a loop (unless a VM on that vSwitch forwards them). I have many vSphere hosts connected to two stacked Cisco switches and it works fine (both with some form of etherchannel and built-in VMWare failover).