Not sure if I should have posted this in the ESXi 5 forum, so my apologies if this is the wrong place.
I have a four host (all ESXi 5.0) cluster in my vCenter (5.1) that has intermittent network issues. Each host is configured with a standard switch and identical vlans that all work. On occasion, and most notably after I've vmotioned vm's to different hosts, "some" virtual machines have the network cut out. There's no visible host issues, and the vm's operating systems are all still up when this happens, but they become unreachable. (no ping, no rdp, etc.) A quick fix is to toggle the network adapter by un-checking "Connected", then going right back in and re-checking "Connected" and the network instantly comes back.
I experienced this long ago and was able to fix it by adjusting the number of vSwitch ports on the hosts. Apparently I had more vm's in the cluster than I did vSwitch ports on each host, and I was told this can cause this exact problem. Unfortunately this is no longer the case as I have my hosts port number set much higher than my vm count in the cluster.
Does anyone know what I can do to test, investigate, or troubleshoot the issue? I'm not a network guy, so I'd like to do all I can on my side before engaging another team.
Thank you very much.