VMware has announced the discontinuation of its third party virtual switch (vSwitch) program, and plans to deprecate the VMware vSphere APIs used by third party switches in the release following vSphere 6.5 Update 1. Subsequent vSphere versions will have the third party vSwitch APIs completely removed and third party vSwitches will no longer work.
In the past years, VMware has recommended the Nexus 1000V users to move into the VMware vSphere Distributed Switch to avoid future problems, now it’s clear the product version where you can go.
The 3rd party switch APIs will work and be supported only up to vSphere 6.5 Update 1.
And it’s not only Cisco Nexus 1000V, but also Cisco VM-FEX, HPE 5900v and IBM DVS 5000v virtual switches.
To assist in vSwitch migration, VMware offers a free migration tool for migrating from Nexus 1000v to VDS. In addition, VMware’s Professional Services Organization can provide services to customer to migrate from 3rd party vSwitch to VDS.
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