This was definitely my issue, but now I'm puzzled and curious.
What is a port group?
What is a vswitch?
I had the understanding that all I needed to configure was a vswitch? In my mind a vswitch is a virtual switch. A physical switch has ports (physical and logical). Ports can be uplinks, access, etc. A switch provides connectivity to all hosts connected to it. In my situation I'm connecting a VM to my switch, My switch also has an "uplink" of sorts that connects to the outside world.
My question remains, what is a port group? and why did I need to configure it. As part of that configuration I had to assign it to a vswitch?
Maybe the more I think about it.....a port group bridges the virtual to physical worlds. Meaning I can connect numerous VMs together inside a vswitch, but by default a vswitch is just that, it has no physical ports in it. Build a port group and assign it to a vswitch. Now your virtual world is connected to your virtual world via the port group. Kinda like the port group is the uplink out of the vswitch. Why can't I natively add a physical port to a vswitch?
is my rambling making any sense?
Greg