Meets our high security requirements, but comes with the matching high price tag
July 11, 2019

Meets our high security requirements, but comes with the matching high price tag

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with VMware NSX

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.
  • 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
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.