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VMware NSX

VMware NSX

Overview

What is VMware NSX?

VMware NSX is network virtualization technology. VMware NSX is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Improved Security: Multiple users have praised the product for its ability to significantly improve security. By allowing network …
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Product Demos

VMware NSX vSphere Zero-Trust Security Demo

YouTube

Demo: NSX-T Data Center Edge VM deployment on N-VDS Logical switches

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Securing Bare-metal Workloads with VMware NSX

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Demo: VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Formerly Avi Networks)

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Demo: VMware NSX-T Migration Coordinator

YouTube

Live Stream - VMware NSX: Training & Demo

YouTube
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Product Details

What is VMware NSX?

VMware NSX is a network virtualization and security platform that enables VMware’s cloud networking solution with a software-defined approach to networking that extends across data centers, clouds and application frameworks. With NSX, networking and security are brought closer to the application wherever it’s running, from virtual machines (VMs) to containers to physical servers.

VMware NSX is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.


Like the operational model of VMs, networks can be provisioned and managed independent of underlying hardware. NSX reproduces the entire network model in software, enabling any network topology—from simple to complex multitier networks—to be created and provisioned in seconds. Users can create multiple virtual networks with diverse requirements, leveraging a combination of the services offered via NSX or from a broad ecosystem of third-party integrations—ranging from next-generation firewalls to performance management solutions—to build inherently more agile and secure environments. These services can then be extended to a variety of endpoints within and across clouds.

VMware NSX delivers a operational model for networking defined in software, forming the foundation of the software-defined data center (SDDC) and extending to a cloud network. Data center operators can now achieve levels of agility, security and economics that were previously unreachable when the data center network was tied solely to physical hardware components. NSX provides a complete set of logical networking and security capabilities and services, including logical switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing, virtual private network (VPN), quality of service (QoS), and monitoring. These services are provisioned in virtual networks through any cloud management platform leveraging NSX APIs. Virtual networks are deployed non-disruptively over any existing networking hardware and can extend across data centers, public and private clouds, container platforms, and physical servers.

Key features

  • Switching Enable logical Layer 2 overlay extensions across a routed (Layer 3) fabric within and across data center boundaries.
  • Routing Dynamic routing between virtual networks that is performed in a distributed manner in the hypervisor kernel, and scale-out routing with active-active failover with physical routers.
  • Static routing and dynamic routing protocols are supported, including support for IPv6.
  • Load balancing - VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancerâ„¢ provides enterprisegrade multi-cloud load balancing, global server load balancing (GSLB), application security and web application firewall, application analytics and container ingress services from the data center to the cloud.
  • Virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) Complete data plane isolation among tenants with a separate routing table, network address translation (NAT), and edge firewall support in each VRF on the NSX Tier-0 gateway.
  • Distributed firewall - Stateful firewalling of Layer 2 up to Layer 7 (including app identification, user identification, and distributed FQDN allowlisting) is embedded in the hypervisor kernel, and distributed across the entire environment with centralized policy and management. In addition, the NSX Distributed Firewallâ„¢ integrates directly into cloud native platforms such as Kubernetes and Pivotal Cloud Foundry, native public clouds such as AWS and Azure, as well as physical servers.

VMware NSX Video

VMware NSX Introduction

VMware NSX Integrations

VMware NSX Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(43)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Improved Security: Multiple users have praised the product for its ability to significantly improve security. By allowing network regulations and offering micro-segmentation, this feature ensures that virtual networks are well-protected from potential threats and unauthorized access.

Versatility in Virtual VLAN Segmentation: Reviewers have highlighted the product's exceptional versatility when it comes to virtual VLAN segmentation and segregation. They appreciate the wide array of tools available, which makes it effortless to deploy and manage virtual networks according to their specific requirements.

Seamless Integration with Existing VMWare Environments: Users have consistently mentioned the seamless integration capabilities of the product with existing VMWare environments. This compatibility not only simplifies the integration process but also enables smooth operation within the current network infrastructure without any disruptions or conflicts.

Difficult for users without mid-level network skills: Some users have mentioned that the software requires a solid grasp of network virtualization, making it less user-friendly for those without mid-level network skills.

Setup procedure can be laborious and time-consuming: According to some reviewers, the initial setup procedure can be laborious and time-consuming, which may take a while for users to fully understand the benefits of the device.

Challenges in gaining acceptance from network engineers: Several customers have highlighted the challenge of gaining acceptance from network engineers who are accustomed to working with other technologies, suggesting that the software may not be easily adopted by everyone.

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Used across datacenter to manage virtual environment in terms of networking and security.
  • Versatile in terms of features
  • Modular
  • Easy integration if you are heavy vSphere user
  • Interoperability in multi-vendor environments
  • Advanced networking and packet acceleration options can be improved
Well-suited for virtual environment that are already VMware heavy.

Not suited for NFV yet with the current feature set.
  • Seamless integration with VMware
  • Ability to integrate across bare-metal, VMs and containers
  • Modular and easy to operate
  • Easy to manage networking and security
  • Better visibility into the environments
Nuage Networks Virtualized Services Platform (VSP)
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using VMware NSX for network security and management across 3 vCenters, two of which are VDI. It has allowed for micro-segmentation, native load balancing, firewalling for our servers, and broadcast suppression for a highly scalable VDI environment. It has provided simplified management and security. It has also allowed us to deploy new load balancers faster than a purchase order could even be cut, and allowed for much more dynamic security design. It has also provided the ability for us to move towards a much greater software-defined data center environment, which has allowed for greater flexibility in the future.
  • Broadcast Suppression: By suppressing broadcast traffic, we have been able to deploy a single VDI network in a /18 network space, allowing for rapid growth and proper DHCP lease timing for a VDI instant clone environment.
  • Networking HA: Leveraging internal mechanisms for high availability, it provides disaster resiliency to a virtual networking environment.
  • Cost Savings: All available features of NSX are licensed simultaneously. Load balancers, firewalls, and routers are all licensed as features, not per object, allowing for the deployment of as many of these objects as are needed.
  • Firewall rules can break all communication. If a rule is improperly written, it can block all communication to the hosts, vCenter(s), and NSX components, requiring lengthy recovery times.
  • If NSX components break, it can break the entire system if it is not properly designed. No components are required to manage NSX which should exist behind NSX networks, just like no vCenter components should exist behind vCenter objects (VVols, VSAN, DVS).
With proper design, VMware NSX can and should be deployed to virtually any VMware virtualization environment, but the deployment should be tailored to the needs of that environment. There isn't really a one size fits all deployment design for all environments. That versatility is what provides its greatest strength to a business.
  • Increased security.
  • Increased agility.
  • Increased flexibility.
We use both Cisco ACI and VMware NSX, and while they have different strengths and capabilities, I would recommend VMware NSX, as it can be used in all VMware environments, without costly physical infrastructure changes. Cisco ACI provides some of the same capabilities, but not all. It's focus relies on physical networking changes.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
VMware NSX is being used in our high-security environments that require end to end encryption and micro-segmentation between endpoints. This was a challenge that I haven't seen another solution too besides rewriting applications which isn't always possible or reasonable. It's not widely used because of the steep price tag compared to some alternatives but has its place in the high-security environments we have deployed in several data centers.
  • End to end encryption on the wire.
  • Micro-segmentation.
  • Integrates well with existing VMWare environment.
  • Integrates well with our existing network.
  • Our biggest challenge is gaining acceptance from network engineers who are used to working with other technologies.
Our high-security environments require end to end encryption, but also tend to have larger budgets. Since beginning utilization of VMware NSX, we've been able to meet the unique requirements for our high-security clients, but it does have a large price tag that goes along with it. This isn't a particularly well-suited solution for environments with tighter budgets, but it definitely provides security where we need it and are willing to pay for this solution.
  • Ability to move workloads more easily with the ability to stretch/move networks across multiple physical locations.
  • The added flexibility allows you to expedite tech refreshes since you're no longer constrained by the hardware.
We use both ACI & NSX. They both provide a programmable network and in future releases of ACI they will allow you to stretch fabrics into the cloud like you can do with NSX. ACI, when compared to NSX, turned out to be significantly cheaper, but it also was lacking certain features that currently exist in NSX that don't in ACI. such as the ability to stretch fabrics into the cloud and some of the on the wire encryption from end to end (specifically when talking about going all the way from VM to VM).
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering PAN-DB, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Panorama, Cisco Nexus, Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000), Cisco ASA, Cisco 9000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9000), Cisco 1000 Series Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1000), F5 BIG-IP, HAProxy, Kubernetes, vSphere, CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Ansible
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