Sorry did not notice but host profiles still function in the same fashion so the document shoudl apply - but here is the vSphere 5.1 Host Profile documentation - http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-51-host-profiles-guide.pdf -
If you have created a vDS and are looking to copy that configuration onto a new host - a host profile is still the way to go - and you can export the host profiles and move it to a different environment -