Which component connects the VM NIC to the physical network?

A virtual switch connects the virtual machine NIC to the physical network. The virtual network interface card (vNIC) is the virtualized network card presented to the virtual machine. A trunk is a mode for a switchport or virtual switch that allows multiple VLANs to be tagged over a single virtual or physical link. NX-OS is a Cisco operating system that runs on the line of Nexus data center switches.