Configuring a Distributed Switch can be a pain, especially if you do it for the first time after using a virtual switch. A virtual switch is mostly used in smaller environment with only a few ESXi hosts. Once you expand into 10+ ESXi hosts, you want to use a Distributed Switch to cut down the time it takes to configure an ESXi host and enhance the manageability of the ESXi networking component.
However, with configuring a Distributed Switch, you also get a whole new range of configuration options for the port groups. Below is the list of the options and what they mean:
| Option | Setting | Description |
| Port binding | Static binding | Assign a port to a virtual machine when the virtual machine connects to the port group |
| Dynamic binding ( < ESXi 5.0) | Assign a port to a virtual machine once it powers on for the first time. | |
| Ephemeral | No port binding | |
| Port allocation | Elastic | When all ports are assigned, additional eight ports will be created. |
| Fixed | When all ports are assigned, no additional ports will be created | |
| Network resource pool | If you created a network resource pool, select it here. If you didn’t create one, the drop-down will be empty |