Explaining the behavior of a given NIOC setting

VMware recommends utilizing NIOC whenever there are multiple traffic types flowing through some shared network adapter. This situation is common with 10 GB NICs where usually two ports sustain all the network traffic.

Different parameters can be used to control the network traffic:

• Shares: The relative priority of a traffic type against the other traffic types that are active on the same physical adapter.
• Reservation: The minimum bandwidth, in Mbps, that must be guaranteed on a single physical adapter. The total bandwidth reserved for all system traffic types cannot exceed 75 percent of the bandwidth that the physical network adapter with the lowest capacity can provide. Reserved bandwidth that is unused becomes available to other types of system traffic.
• Limit: The maximum bandwidth, in Mbps or Gbps, that a system traffic type can consume on a single physical adapter.