Topology viewer

General view

The Topology view provides an overview of the network infrastructure, detailing Distributed VSwitch, PortGroups, networks, ESXi and VMs, and how these are interconnected.

In our example, the compute part consists of 2 ESXi and 13 VMs. For the network part, 3 Distributed VSwitches and 1 network are deployed.

This view shows which ESXi and which VMs are connected to which Distributed VSwitches and which networks.

By default, only Networks and vSwitch distributions are displayed.

You can go down one level by clicking on a distributed vSwitch: you will then see the details of its PortGroups, and for each PortGroup the resources connected to it.

Overview of physical connections

In addition, it is possible to filter and select resources using the options provided by the "Map data settings" panel.

Overview of physical connections

It is possible to see how the network cards of the VMs are connected to the network cards of the ESXi servers. This visualisation is done separately for each of the data centres.

First, select the datacenter in the banner above the visualisation:

A table is then displayed, as in the screenshot below:

For each of the elements connected to the port groups of the distributed vSwitches, the interface number is indicated network interface number of the VM (eth0, eth1, ...) and the corresponding ESXi server network interface number (vmnic1, vmnic2, ...)

Examples

Visualise the interconnection between two VMs

Let's start by clearing the view by deselecting all ESXi servers.

Click on the reload to apply the selection change.

The visualisation is now empty of any calculation resources.

Now, please select two VMs that you want to study.

Click on the reload to apply the selection change.

The new visualisation now allows you to study the interconnection between the two previously selected VMs.

Please note that by selecting these two VMs, their ESXi servers are partially selected: they are displayed but their unselected VMs do not appear on the screen, as shown in the screenshot below.