NSX-v to NSX-T Migration: The Playbook Nobody Gives You
Having led this migration at enterprise scale, here’s the real playbook — including the gotchas that aren’t in VMware’s documentation.
NSX
NSX-V Edge Services Gateways: The Part That Trips Up First-Timers
If the Distributed Firewall is NSX-V’s most-used feature, the Edge Services Gateway (ESG) is its most confusing. ESGs are software-defined appliances that provide routing, NAT, load balancing, VPN, and perimeter firewall functions. They’re powerful, but the design decisions around ESG sizing and topology have long-term consequences that aren’t obvious when you’re setting one up for … Read more
NSX-V and Physical Firewalls: Finding the Right Boundary
Organizations deploying NSX-V often already have physical perimeter firewalls — Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco ASA, or Check Point. A common design question: what does NSX do, and what does the physical firewall continue to do? Getting this boundary wrong creates operational complexity without commensurate security benefit. The Principle: NSX for East-West, Physical for North-South The … Read more
Troubleshooting NSX-V: Controller Issues and What They Actually Mean
NSX-V’s control plane runs on a cluster of controller VMs that manage logical network state — VXLAN mappings, logical router tables, and distributed firewall rule distribution. When controllers have problems, the symptoms are usually indirect and confusing: VMs can’t reach each other, logical networks stop working, or new VM deployments fail network connectivity. Here’s how … Read more
NSX-V Micro-Segmentation: Applying Distributed Firewall in Practice
The distributed firewall is the feature that justifies NSX-V for most mid-size organizations. Traditional network firewalls sit at the perimeter or at layer boundaries — north-south traffic is controlled, but east-west traffic between VMs on the same network or VLAN moves freely. NSX’s DFW enforces policy at the vNIC level, so every packet between VMs … Read more
NSX-V First Deployment: What to Actually Prepare For
NSX-V (for vSphere) is VMware’s software-defined networking platform for vSphere environments. It decouples network functions — switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing — from physical infrastructure and manages them in software. The pitch is compelling: micro-segmentation, zero-trust networking, rapid deployment of complex network topologies without touching physical switches. The reality of deploying it for the first … Read more