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 a guest operating system and 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 zero 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; storing an association between the DVport and the VNIC connected to the DVport; and restoring a state from the DVport to a new virtual port from the persistent storage location when the VM corresponding to the connected VNIC is restarted.