An external network provides connectivity outside an organization through an existing, preconfigured vSphere port group. These can be a standard port group, distributed port group, or a third-party distributed switch port group construct such as the Cisco Nexus 1000V port profile.

In a public vCloud, external networks can provide access through the Internet to customer networks, typically using VPN or MPLS termination. Before creating external networks, provision the requisite number of vSphere port groups with external connectivity.