Ace Jason Dion's Network+ Challenge 2026 – Boost Your Skills and Conquer the IT World!

In virtualization, a virtual switch is a software-based switch inside the hypervisor that connects virtual machines to form a network. Each VM has a virtual NIC, and the virtual switch forwards frames between these vNICs on the same host. It can also provide connectivity to the physical network through uplinks, enabling traffic to leave or enter the host’s virtual network. This is fundamentally different from a hardware router (which routes between networks), a physical switch (a physical device), or a firewall feature (security controls), so the software-based switch description best fits how a virtual switch operates.