1. A method for persisting a state of a virtual port in a virtualized computer system having at least one virtual machine, virtualization software logically interposed between the virtual machines and system hardware, each virtual machine including at least one virtual network interface card (VNIC), the virtualization software implementing the VNIC using emulation software and a virtual switch, the virtual switch comprising a virtual port corresponding to each of the VNICs, the virtual switch functioning to forward network frames between the VNICs and one or more physical network interface cards (NICs) connected to the system hardware, the method comprising: storing a distributed virtual port (DVport) in a persistent storage location, the DVport comprising a runtime state and configuration settings for a first link between a VNIC corresponding to a virtual machine and a virtual switch associated with a first virtual port; and restoring a state from the DVport to a second virtual port using the runtime state and configuration settings from the persistent storage location when the VM corresponding to the connected VNIC is restarted, the restoring of the state allowing the second virtual port to establish a second link to forward network frames between the VNIC corresponding to the restarted VM and a virtual switch associated with the second virtual port, the second link being established with the state of the first link.