Finally there’s a second VMware partner who decided to create a third part distributed virtual switch for VMware vSphere. On February 14th IBM announced their IBM 5000V Distributed Virtual Switch. The planned availability date for this product is February 23, 2012.

The IBM System Networking Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V, which  requires a VMware vSphere 5.0 Enterprise Plus license, replaces the native distributed virtual switch in a VMware vSphere 5.0 environment and provides managed, advanced networking functionality for virtual machines.

IBM System Networking Distributed Virtual Switch 5000V is a manageable, distributed virtual switch for VMware vSphere 5.0 Enterprise Plus environment. IBM DVS 5000V provides advanced networking features and troubleshooting features, which make it ideal for deployments in large-scale Server Virtualization and Cloud environments.

The IBM DVS 5000V appears as a standard network switch, which enables network administrators to configure and manage the distributed virtual switch as a regular physical switch using familiar IBM switch user interfaces.