Network I/O Control (NIOC) is a feature of a dvSwitch which allows the use of network resource pools which determine the bandwidth that different network types are granted. When enabled, NIOC divides traffic into the following resource pools:
- Fault Tolerance traffic
- iSCSI traffic
- vMotion traffic
- Management traffic
- vSphere Replication traffic
- NFS traffic
- Virtual Machine traffic
These can be seen under the Resource Allocation tab of the dvSwitch:
In addition to the default network resource pools, you can create User-defined network resource pools, and set a QoS (Quality of Service) tag, so that the physical network switches understand the priority given to various traffic types.
NIOC can only be configured on a vDS, and therefore requires Enterprise Plus licensing.
Enabling Network I/O Control
The first step to configuring NIOC is to enable the feature on the dvSwitch. To do so, browse to the Resource Allocation tab for the dvSwitch, then click properties:
In the dialog box, tick the box to enable NIOC:
You should now see that NIOC has been enabled:
Creating User-Defined Network Resource Pools
To create a new Network Resource Pool, click on ‘New Network Resource Pool’:
If necessary you can also edit the existing resource pools:
Assigning Portgroups to Network Resource Pools
Once the resource pool has been created, the next step is to assign portgroups to the resource pool. To do so, click ‘Manage Port Groups’:
In the dialog box (shown above), you can assign network resource pools to port groups. The benefit of doing the assignments here is that you can select multiple portgroups to assign a resource pool to. You can also select a network resource pool for a port group in the port group’s settings:
Useful Links and Resources
https://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2010/07/got-network-io-control.html
https://frankdenneman.nl/2013/01/17/a-primer-on-network-io-control/