In last post of this series we saw how to prepare Esxi host and Cluster for NSX. In this post we will be talking little bit about VXLAN, what are its benefits and how to configure VXLAN on Esxi hosts.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series you can read them from here:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

4: Preparing Esxi Hosts and Cluster

Lets start our discussion with what is VXLAN.

Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) is an encapsulation protocol for running an overlay network on existing Layer 3 infrastructure. An overlay network is a virtual network that is built on top of existing network Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies to support elastic compute architectures.

In VXLAN the original layer 2 frame is encapsulated in a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packet and delivered over a transport network. This technology provides the ability to extend layer 2 networks across layer 3 boundaries and consume capacity across clusters.… Read More

In previous posts of this series, we talked about NSX Manager and NSX Controllers Deployment and also validated NSX Control Cluster status.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series you can read them from here:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

3: Deploying NSX Controllers

In this post we are going to learn about how to prepare Clusters and Esxi Hosts for NSX.

At this point we have NSX manager and controllers ready and established connection between control and management plane. Next step is to prepare cluster and Esxi hosts.

NSX installs three vSphere Installation Bundles (VIB) that enable NSX functionality to the host. One VIB enables the layer 2 VXLAN functionality, 2nd VIB enables the distributed router, and the 3rd VIB enables the distributed firewall. After adding the VIBs to a distributed switch, that distributed switch is called VMware NSX Virtual Switch.

Login to vCenter Server using vSphere Web Client and Navigate to Networking & Security > Installation > Host Preparation.… Read More

In last 2 posts of this series we understood what NSX is and how to install/configure NSX manager.

If you have missed earlier posts of this series, you can read them from below links:

1: Introduction to VMware NSX

2: Installing and Configuring NSX Manager

In this post we will be talking about NSX controllers. Before diving into lab, we will first discuss a little bit theory about NSX controllers and its importance.

NSX Controllers

NSX controllers are the control plane for NSX. They are deployed in a cluster arrangement, so as you deploy these, you can add more controllers for better performance and high availability so that if you loose one of em, you do not loose control functionality. These are important, if you loose enough of these, things stop working.

NSX controllers stores following tables:

1: MAC Table
2: ARP Table
3: VTEP Table

NSX controllers considerations:

1: Deployed in odd numbers

Controllers uses a cluster and uses a voting quorum.… Read More

In last post of this series we had a look into what NSX is and how it fits in a software defined datacenter. We also had a look on core NSX components and discussed in brief about them.

In this post we will be talking about basic installation and configuration options of NSX manager.

NSX manager provides a centralized management plane across your datacenter. It provides the management UI and API for NSX. NSX manager runs as a virtual appliance on an ESXi host and during installation it injects a plugin into the vSphere Web Client through which it can be managed.Each NSX Manager manages a single vCenter Server environment.

There are few prerequisites that must be met before proceeding with installation of NSX manager. These are as follows:

1: vSphere infrastructure should be ready. At least there should be 2 cluster.

2: NSX can be managed only via vSphere Web Client .… Read More

VMware NSX is the network virtualization and security platform that emerged from VMware after they acquired Nicira in 2012. This acquisition launched VMware into the software-defined networking (SDN)  and network functions virtualization (NFV) world.

VMware NSX® is a software networking and security virtualization platform that delivers the operational model of a virtual machine for the network. Virtual networks reproduce the Layer2 – Layer7 network model in software, allowing complex multi-tier network topologies to be created and provisioned programmatically in seconds, without the need for additional SoftLayer Private Networks. NSX also provides a new model for network security. Security profiles are distributed to and enforced by virtual ports and move with virtual machines.

With VMware NSX, virtualization now delivers for networking what it has already delivered for compute and storage. NSX can be configured through the vSphere Web Client, a command line interface (CLI), and REST API.

NSX includes a library of logical networking services – logical switches, logical routers, logical firewalls, logical load balancers, logical VPN, and distributed security.… Read More