Port Groups

Port groups aggregate multiple ports under a common configuration. Each port can connect to a network adapter of a virtual machine, or an uplink adapter on the physical machine.

Each port group is identified by a network label, which is unique to the current host. Network labels make virtual machine configuration portable across hosts. All port groups in a datacenter that are physically connected to the same network (in the sense that each can receive broadcasts from the others) are given the same label. Conversely, if two port groups cannot receive broadcasts from each other, they have distinct labels.

You can use a VLAN ID to restrict port group traffic to a logical Ethernet segment within the physical network. For a port group to reach port groups located on other VLANs, the VLAN ID must be set to 4095. If you use VLAN IDs, you must change the port group labels and VLAN IDs together so that the labels properly represent connectivity.