Studying NSX, I found that a review of the differences between vmnics, vNIC’s, and the terminology where in order.

I thought this blog post did a good job of over viewing the terms.

What is vNIC, VMKNIC, PortGroups, Uplink Ports, vPorts and VMXNET3 Adapter

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Virtual Networking is one of the Key components of Datacenter. If all your Critical VMs running on highly redundant & high speed SAN or Ethernet Network but if VMs can’t communicate with each other then everything is useless.
From Functioning perspective, Virtual Network in VMware is similar to Physical Networks. Like Physical networking, Virtual networking is also exercises TCP/IP stack so nothing is changed underneath.
But Virtual networking has introduced many new components or its complex terminology which is sufficient enough to confuse any new admin or anyone who is trying to familiar with VMware Networking.

In this post, I will try to make you guys familiar with VMware Networking components, Its terminology and significance of each Networking Component.”

What is vNIC, VMKNIC, PortGroups, Uplink Ports, vPorts and VMXNET3 Adapter

Source and all credit to http://www.govmlab.com