I have seen some information flying around today regarding vDS switches and what happens with the loss of vCenter. Some information regarding vDS is listed below: 1. Each ESX host keeps local database that describes vDS /etc/vmware/dvsdata.db. This allows the ESX host to run vDS as a simple vSwitch, when vCenter is down There is an unsupported tool to display contents of this database /usr/lib/vmware/bin/net-dvs – The dvsdata.db file only holds information that doesn’t have to be shared across esx hosts, this will include local switch configuration (uplinks etc.) as well as configuration for dvPorts that host vnics (mgmt, vmotion and FT) connect to. 2. There is .DvSdata folder, which as I understood holds the information about virtual switches, which is synchronized with all ESX hosts, which are using this switch. – The folder contains information about ports relating to the vm vnics. Ports connected to vnics will have their state persisted in the same datastore dvsData folder as the VM’s working directory. The idea is that when there is an HA failover HA will load the same port configuration (by reading the port file on disk) on the failover host before powering on the VM. This assumes that the

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