VMware NSX Network Essentials

Sreejith.C

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781782172932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Networking
• Index: Computer Science

Learn how to virtualize your network and discover the full potential of a Software Defined Data Center. A smarter way to use network resources begins here

About This Book

• Experience the dynamism and flexibility of a virtualized software defined data center with NSX
• Find out how to design your network infrastructure based on what your organization needs
• From security to automation, discover how NSX's impressive range of features can unlock a more effective and intelligent approach to system administration

Who This Book Is For

If you're a network administrator and want a simple but powerful solution to your network virtualization headaches, look no further than this fast-paced, practical guide.

What You Will Learn

• Deep dive into NSX-v Manager, Controller deployment, and design decisions
• Get to know the strategies needed to make decisions on each mode of VXLAN that is based on physical network design
• Deploy Edge Gateway and leverage all the gateway features and design decisions
• Get to grips with NSX-v Security features and automate security
• Leverage Cross VC, identify the benefits, and work through a few deployment scenarios
• Troubleshoot an NSX-v to isolate problems and identify solutions through a step-by-step process

In Detail

VMware NSX is at the forefront of the software-defined networking revolution. It makes it even easier for organizations to unlock the full benefits of a software-defined data center – scalability, flexibility – while adding in vital security and automation features to keep any sysadmin happy. Software alone won't power your business – with NSX you can use it more effectively than ever before, optimizing your resources and reducing costs.

Getting started should be easy – this guide makes sure it is. It takes you through the core components of NSX, demonstrating how to set it up, customize it within your current network architecture. You'll learn the principles of effective design, as well as some things you may need to take into consideration when you're creating your virtual networks. We'll also show you how to construct and maintain virtual networks, and how to deal with any tricky situations and failures.

By the end, you'll be confident you can deliver, scale and secure an exemplary virtualized network with NSX.

Style and approach

This book provides you with an introduction to software-defined networking with VMware NSX. Focusing on the most essential elements, so you can put your knowledge into practice quickly, it's a guide dedicated to anyone who understands that sometimes real-world problems require virtualized solutions.

VMware NSX Network Essentials

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VMware NSX Network Essentials

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

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First published: September 2016

Production reference: 1220916

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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Birmingham

B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78217-293-2

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author Sreejith.C	Copy Editor Safis Editing
Reviewer Deepal Verma	Project Coordinator Judie Jose
Acquisition Editor Vinay Argekar	Proofreader Safis Editing
Content Development Editor Amrita Noronha	Indexer Aishwarya Gangawane
Technical Editor Deepti Tuscano	Graphics Disha Haria
	Production Coordinator Nilesh Mohite

Foreword

Over the past few decades, we witnessed how virtualization changed the landscape of a modern data center. It revolutionized how an under-utilized server hardware could be effectively utilized and in turn secure the ROI for businesses. In fact, virtualization is the first step towards helping organizations realize the goal of Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC). Now it's time for networks to go through the similar drift and step into new world of SDDC, with the advent of Network Virtualization(NV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Although network virtualization and SDN appear to be the same from an end output perspective, there are subtle nuances between the key functions they both offer to traditional networks. While network virtualization provides a way to create an abstraction layer on the underlying physical layer to create networks, SDN concentrates on consolidating the control plane for these networks. VMware NSX leverages both the network virtualization and SDN concepts to provide a feature-rich networking and security platform for its customers. NSX is a big leap towards achieving VMware's vision of SDDC. With NSX for vSphere in place, customers can seamlessly extend virtualization to network and security services and also bundle them with automation capabilities.

There has been a lot spoken and written lately about VMware NSX in the networking industry over the past few years. If we take a step back and look at where all this started, we quickly come across a company called Nicira, which arguably introduced the SDN concept to the industry back in the 2000s. In 2012 when VMware acquired Nicira, a new transformation started for virtual networks which enabled them to offer networking and security functionality that is typically handled in hardware directly in hypervisors. In short, NSX successfully enabled customers to abstract, reproduce, and automate the traditional network and security services in software.

I don't want to spill the beans just yet in this foreword. I would let you explore all the awesomeness of NSX by yourself in the upcoming chapters of this book. This book provides you good foundations on Network Virtualization and SDN along with how NSX uses them both to provide network services to SDDC. You will be shown the detailed step-by-step instructions to install and configure NSX. In addition, you will also be learning how to leverage NSX to implement logical switching, routing (both static and dynamic), edge services gateway, distributed firewall, VPN configurations, data security, and so on.

Hope you are going to like it, and happy learning!

Pavan Kumar Thota

Staff Technical Training specialist

About the Author

Sreejith.C is a solution consultant at the Mannai corporation based out of Qatar. He specializes in storage, virtualization, private, public, hybrid cloud, and SDN. He determines customer requirements and designs VMware Cloud-based solution architectures spanning VMware’s product portfolio from the vCloud Suite to meet the functional and business requirements of various sizes of organisation, and across verticals. He holds various advanced and professional certifications: VCAP-CIA,VCAP 55-DCV,CCNA-DC, VCP-NV, VCP-CLOUD-5/6, VCP- 6/5/4, EMC-ISA, EMCISA-V2, EMCIE, and MCTS-AD2008. He has instructed multiple candidates on EMC and VMware technologies on a wide range of products such as Symmetrix, VMAX, vCloud Director, VCNS, NSX, and vCloud Air. He enjoys speaking at customer forums by sharing his ideas and also participates in VMware Community forums. You can contact him on LinkedIn ID at http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sreejith-c/44/b30/a2a

Sreejith is married to Sthuthi and they are blessed with a beautiful daughter called Naomi.

I would like to dedicate this book to my family, who have immensely helped in my career, and last but not least, my colleagues with whom I have worked so far in VMware and Wipro Technologies.

About the Reviewer

Deepal Verma is a senior systems engineer who specializes in virtualization and storage technologies. He has worked in a variety of technical roles for over 10 years and holds industry certifications including VMware Certified Implementation Expert - Network Virtualization (VCIX-NV), VMware Certified Professional 6 – Network Virtualization (VCP6-NV), VMware Certified Professional 6 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP6-DCV), VMware Certified Professional 5 – Data Center Virtualization (VCP5-DCV), and others from AWS, EMC, and NetApp. His passion is to continue to ...