Cisco Data Center Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX)

One Infrastructure Supports Different Network Traffic Types
Cisco Virtual Machine Fabric Extender (VM-FEX) collapses virtual and physical networking into a single infrastructure. Data center administrators can now provision, configure, manage, monitor, and diagnose virtual machine network traffic and bare metal network traffic within a unified infrastructure.

The VM-FEX software extends Cisco fabric extender technology to the virtual machine with the following capabilities:

Each virtual machine includes a dedicated interface on the parent switch
All virtual machine traffic is sent directly to the dedicated interface on the switch
The software-based switch in the hypervisor is eliminated

VM-FEX: One Network

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Cisco VM-FEX technology collapses virtual switching infrastructure and physical switching infrastructure into a single, easy-to-manage environment. Benefits include:

Simplified operations: Eliminates the need for a separate, virtual networking infrastructure
Improved network security: Contains VLAN proliferation
Optimized network utilization: Reduces broadcast domains
Enhanced application performance: Offloads virtual machine switching from host CPU to parent switch application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)

VM-FEX is supported on Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and VMware ESX hypervisors. Live migration and vMotion are also supported with VM-FEX.