Can you share the source that says that  reating a tagged Virtual Switch is not recommanded.

 Microsoft provides many ways and architectures to create your network configuration and that depends on your aim, NIC count, security and other factors

Check out the below links also read the comments especially in the Aidan Finn article. Also I'm talking about a tagged virtual switch via nic teaming. Basically Finn tells the  Matt that what he is doing is wrong but never backs it up with any solid proof. I have also read other post that do not recommend using sub teams for your vswitches.  Also I need to find some links or a book where MS  talks about different layouts.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/11/20/vlan-tricks-with-nic-teaming-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=10164#comment-199346

• Edited by OSU75 9 hours 27 minutes ago

Check out the below links also read the comments especially in the Aidan Finn article. Also I'm talking about a tagged virtual switch via nic teaming. Basically Finn tells the  Matt that what he is doing is wrong but never backs it up with any solid proof. I have also read other post that do not recommend using sub teams for your vswitches.  Also I need to find some links or a book where MS  talks about different layouts.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/11/20/vlan-tricks-with-nic-teaming-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=10164#comment-199346

• Edited by OSU75 Saturday, April 25, 2015 9:34 PM

You are accustomed to the VMware way (xen and XenServer do this to) of applying VLAN tags at the bridge level.

Hyper-V assigns the VLAN tags at the virtual port / NIC level - just like you do with hardware.

Your networking folks can tag traffic at the physical switch port if you want, but is it not possible at the virtual switch level.

This is simply the difference between how the two systems are implemented / built.

Check out the below links also read the comments especially in the Aidan Finn article. Also I'm talking about a tagged virtual switch via nic teaming. Basically Finn tells the  Matt that what he is doing is wrong but never backs it up with any solid proof. I have also read other post that do not recommend using sub teams for your vswitches.  Also I need to find some links or a book where MS  talks about different layouts.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/keithmayer/archive/2012/11/20/vlan-tricks-with-nic-teaming-in-windows-server-2012.aspx

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=10164#comment-199346

Aidan Finn has its own perspective on answering Matt, maybe he should have post much explanation, but in this time, maybe this was the best supported method (Aidan Finn still a Hyper-V guru after all). In addition this concerns Windows 2008 R2 and at this era, Windows NIC teaming was based on vendors. I confirm that building Virtual Switches is supported on child team NICs.

If i understood your concern, your aim is to tag an Interface, build a Virtual Switch upon it, then assign VMs to this Virtual Switch (The aim is to avoid tagging a VM NIC each time you create it)

In fact, you can do this with Hyper-V 2012 but in a different manner.
Your path is the following

NIC Team ---> Child Tagged NIC teams----> VSwitch on each Child Tagged NIC teams

The Windows Hyper-V path

NIC Team ---> Virtual Swicth ---> Tagged Child Virtual Switches

You can achieve this via Converged Fabric architecture : You can either use Powershell on Windows or use Virtual Machine Manager

http://www.hyper-v.nu/archives/hvredevoort/2012/06/building-a-converged-fabric-with-windows-server-2012-powershell/

I am all hands on myself.

In this case, my book is TechNet.

There is also Ben's ( "VirtualPCGuy" ) blog.  And there are some excellent TechNet wiki articles that have been built over time.

You are accustomed to the VMware way (xen and XenServer do this to) of applying VLAN tags at the bridge level.

Hyper-V assigns the VLAN tags at the virtual port / NIC level - just like you do with hardware.

Your networking folks can tag traffic at the physical switch port if you want, but is it not possible at the virtual switch level.

This is simply the difference between how the two systems are implemented /

What I stated was that the VLAN tag is not assigned to the bridge (virtual switch) it is instead assigned to the individual ports of the virtual switch (also known as virtual NICs).

Samir simply outlined the commands to create a virtual switch and then adding host vNICs so that you can apply settings beyond the VLAN tag alone.

You can buy the excellent Hyper-V book made by a group of Hyper-V MVPs

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=14382

You can search and read topics about (There is a lot of interesting blogs and articles)

- Windows Server 2012 Teaming

- Windows Server 2012 Converged Fabric

I would like to bring up the topic of Hyper V networking and using nic teaming along with vlans via Windows Server 2012 R2.  I come from a Vmware shop one of our sister companies is going Hyper V so I decided to read up on it. From what I've read you have to configure vlan tags on each individual vm. So I would like to ask why can't I just create a nic team in windows than create sub teams off of that? After that go into the Hyper V switch manager and create a vswitch that's attached to the sub teams nic. That way an admin does not have to go into each vm to assign a tag to a  guest vm. I was reading that this is not recommended and you should tag each vm with the tag of your choice. I know that if you have a lot of vlans this would result in a lot of vswitches. However, if you are configuring management traffic or storage traffic than it's ok to use a sub team. So in short why is it not advised to use sub team interfaces with virtual switches?

Some other forum members (including me) already replied to this post, but I don't know if we have answered your question. Allow me to explain it is much simpler than you think without going into to much detail:

NIC Team and Team NICs:
First of all, as you know you can create a NIC Team out-of-the box with Windows Server 2012 R2. The so called NIC Team (NICt) will then have one so called Team NIC (tNIC). This tNIC is configured with the "default" untagged VLAN. You have the option change that to a tagged VLAN. And you have the option to add additional tNICs which are tagged. But only one tNIC can be configured default (untagged VLAN). As you may understand, NICt's and tNIC's are usefull for the Management/Parent OS only.

vSwitch, vNICs and vmNICs:
When you created a NICt you can configure a vSwitch on the tNIC. Now there is one rule you have to remember. DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT configure a VLAN tag on a tNIC if you are using a vSwitch on top of it. Because... if you configure a VLAN tag on the tNIC that VLAN traffic is NOT forwarded to the vSwitch. You can see this in chapter 3.13.1.1 on page 22 and 23 of the following document:

Windows Server 2012 R2 NIC Teaming (LBFO) Deployment and Management
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40319

So how do you get VLAN's to the VMs with Hyper-V? Well, that is actually very simple. First of all, you can create as many vmNICs that connect to the vSwitch and configure a VLAN ID in VM properties. You can configure it with Hyper-V Manager. That's it. You don't have to go into the VM and configure a VLAN tag, that would be a burden and no way to manage.

Now, what if you need to configure an additonal vNIC with a VLAN tag that is presented to the Managment/Parent OS? Welll, you can create a vNIC on top the vSwitch with PowerShell. As the above Microsoft document describes; If you are going to use VLAN tagging, only configure VLAN tagging on vNICs and vmNICs. Never configure VLAN tagging on tNICs if you are going to use the tNIC for a vSwitch.

Hi Sir,

I would like to check if you need further assistance.

Best Regards,

Elton Ji