VCP6-NV Study Notes – Section 2 Understand VMware NSX Physical Infrastructure Requirements – Part 2

Objective 2.2: Determine Physical Infrastructure Requirements for a VMware NSX Implementation

Discern management and edge cluster requirements

Management Cluster
- Composed by including vCenter Server, NSX manager, NSX controller, Cloud Management Systems (CMS), and other shared components.
- Compute and memory requirements are pre-identified by the sum of the minimum supported configuration
- Enabling LACP is possible to improve resiliency of management components.
- Don’t require VXLAN provisioning (however in small design where Edge and Management cluster are collapsed, still become necessary)
Compute Cluster
- Are designed with the following considerations
  - Host density per rack and automation dependences
  - Availability and Mobility of Workload
  - Connectivity –> single VTEP vs multi VTEP
  - Topology implication and IP processing for VTEP and vmkernel
- Lifecycle and workload drivers consideration
  - Growth and changes
  - Multi-rack, zoning
  - Same 4 VLANs are required for each rack (Management, vMotion, Storage, VXLAN)
- Workload centric allocation, compliance SLA be met via:
  - Cluster separation
  - Separate VXLAN and transport zone
  - Per tenant DLR and Edge routing domains
  - DRS and resources reservation
Edge cluster
- provide on-ramp and off-ramp connectivity to physical world
- Allow communication with physical devices connected in NSX L2 bridge
- Host and control DLR routing
- May have centralized logical or physical services
- NSX Controllers can be hosted in an edge cluster –> dedicated vCenter is used to manage compute and edge resources
- Edge cluster resources have anti-affinity requirement to protect the active-standby configuration or maintain bandwidth availability during failure
- Needs and Characteristics
  - Edge VM is CPU centric with consistent memory requirements
  - Additional VLAN are required for North-South routing and bridging
  - Recommended teaming option for Edge hosts is “route based on SRC-ID”. Use of LACP is highly discouraged due to vendor specific requirements of route peering over LACP

Source: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmw-nsx-network-virtualization-design-guide.pdf

Differentiate minimum/optimal physical infrastructure requirements for a VMware NSX implementation

System requirements for NSX: You can install one NSX Manager per vCenter Server, one instance of Guest Introspection and Data Security per ESXi™ host, and multiple NSX Edge instances per datacenter
- Hardware (or virtual hardware)
  - NSX Manager –> 16 GB (24 for certain deployment sizes)RAM , 4 vCPU (8 in certain sizes), 60 GB vmdk space
  - NSX Controller –> 4 GB RAM, 4vCPU, 20 GB vmdk space
  - NSX Edge Compact –> 512MB RAM, 1 vCPU, 500MB vmdk space
  - NSX Edge Large –> 1 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 500MB vmdk space + 512 MB
  - NSX Edge Quad Large –> 1 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 500MB vmdk space + 512 MB
  - NSX Edge X-Large –> 8 GB RAM, 6 vCPU, 500MB vmdk space + 2 GB
  - Guest introspection –> 1 GB RAM, 2vCPU, 4 GB vmdk space
  - NSX Data Security –> 512 MB RAM, 1 vCPU, 6 GB per ESXi Host
- Software
  - Check interop matrix http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide/sim/interop_matrix.php
  - ESXi
  - vCenter
  - NSX Manager to participate in a cross-vCenter NSX deployment the following conditions are required:
    - NSX Manager >= 6.2
    - NSX Controller >= 6.2
    - vCenter Server >= 6.0
    - ESXi >= 6.0 (must prepared with NSX vib >= 6.2 )

Source: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-for-vSphere/6.2/nsx_62_install.pdf

The component sizing (i.e., small to extra-large Edge) and configuration flexibility in the platform allows adoption of NSX in in across a wide scale of environments.Common factors affecting the sizing and configuration are as follows:

The number of hosts in deployment
- small 3-10
- medium 10-100
- large > 100
Workload behavior and selection of NSX components mixed with regular workload
Multiple vCenter is not the requirements, though offers great flexibility and cross-VC mobility with NSX 6.2 and ESXi 6.x release
NSX component placement restrictions depends on vCenter design, collapsed clustering options and other SLAs:
- Controller must exist in a vCenter where the NSX manager’s registers to
- Controller should reside in an Edge cluster when a dedicated vCenter is used to manage the compute and edge resources
- Must consider Edge component placement and properties as described in Edge Design & Deployment Considerations as well the Edge vCPU requirements

Source: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/products/nsx/vmw-nsx-network-virtualization-design-guide.pdf

Determine how traffic types are handled in a physical infrastructure

ESXi Host Traffic Types: Common traffic types of interest include overlay, management, vSphere,vMotion and storage traffic
- The overlay traffic is a new traffic type that carries all the virtual machine communication and encapsulates it in UDP (VXLAN) frames
- The other types of traffic are usually leveraged across the overall server infrastructure
- Different traffic types can be segregated via VLANs, enabling clear separation from an IP addressing standpoint
- In the vSphere architecture, specific internal interfaces are defined on each ESXi host to source those different types of traffic
- VXLAN Traffic: Virtual machines connected to one of the VXLAN-based logical L2 networks use this traffic type to communicate
- Management Traffic: is sourced and terminated by the management VMkernel interface on the host
- vMotion Traffic: vSphere vMotion VMkernel interface on each host is used to move this virtual machine state. On a 10GbE NIC, eight simultaneous vSphere vMotion migrations can be performed.
- Storage Traffic: A VMkernel interface is used to provide features such as shared or non-directly attached storage –> NAS and iSCSI