Network virtualization is the process of combining hardware network resources and software network resources into a single administrative unit. This single administrative unit is known as a virtual network. In Oracle Solaris, virtual network interface cards (VNICs) and etherstubs are the basic components of a virtual network. You can create VNICs over physical datalinks. The configured VNICs behave like physical NICs. An etherstub is a pseudo Ethernet NIC that is configured at the datalink layer (L2) of the Oracle Solaris network stack.
Starting with the Oracle Solaris 11.2 release, you can use the Oracle Solaris Elastic Virtual Switch (EVS) feature that enables you to create and administer a virtual switch that spans one or more compute nodes. For more information about network virtualization and EVS, see Managing Network Virtualization and Network Resources in Oracle Solaris 11.3.