What should the minimum bandwidth setting be for four VMs sharing bandwidth equally on an external virtual switch mapped to a 1 Gbps NIC?

In the scenario described, where four virtual machines (VMs) are sharing bandwidth equally on an external virtual switch connected to a 1 Gbps network interface card (NIC), the minimum bandwidth setting does not necessarily need to be greater than zero.

When you set the minimum bandwidth for each VM to zero, it means that while these VMs can utilize bandwidth on demand, they will not be guaranteed a specific amount of bandwidth at all times. This approach allows for flexibility in network usage, permitting each VM to utilize as much of the available bandwidth as needed as long as that capacity is available.

On the other hand, if a minimum bandwidth setting greater than zero is configured (such as 250 Mbps or 500 Mbps), each of the four VMs would be guaranteed that minimum bandwidth, leading to a scenario where the total guaranteed bandwidth could exceed the available capacity of 1 Gbps. For instance, if each VM were guaranteed 250 Mbps, the total minimum demand would be 1 Gbps, which leaves no room for additional network traffic or spikes in bandwidth usage.

Therefore, setting the minimum bandwidth to zero is a practical and flexible approach that allows the VMs to share bandwidth dynamically while ensuring that there is no conflict when demand exceeds the available network