A method for estimating a traffic rate between a virtual machine pair, and a related device are provided. When a rate of traffic sent by a virtual machine vm-x1 to a virtual machine vm-y1 is estimated, reference is made to at least rates of sending traffic by N21 virtual machines deployed in N2 physical hosts and including the virtual machine vm-x1, rates of traffic sent by N1 switching devices to N4 switching devices, rates of receiving traffic of N31 virtual machines deployed in N3 physical hosts and including the virtual machine vm-y1, and rates of outgoing traffic of the N4 switching devices, thereby facilitating relatively accurate estimation of a traffic rate between a virtual machine pair.