VMWare NSX has three main components: 1. The management plane includes the NSX Manager which configures and coordinates the NSX Controller cluster and hypervisor kernel modules. 2. The control plane is made up of the NSX Controller cluster, consisting of 3-5 virtual appliances that manage all logical and runtime network information. 3. The data plane includes the vSwitch on each ESXi host which performs encapsulation, routing and firewalling, as well as the NSX Edge Services Gateway which provides connectivity between virtual and physical networks.

1. VMWare NSX

2. 1.Management Plane
• NSX- Manager
• A special VM, single point of contact for NSX configuration
• Performs role either GUI or API
• In case of NSX for vSphere, NSX Manager has one-to-one mapping with vCenter Server via vSphere web
client plugin(SSL enabled)
• Deployed as OVA(Open virtualization appliance) format
• Coordinated with NSX Controller and vSphere ESXi kernel module on each host for clusters that will run NSX
Services
• Single instance- Once installed, other network components’ functions don’t depend on NSX Manager’s state

3. 2.Control
Plane NSX
Controller
Cluster
VIRTUAL APPLIANCE
PROVISIONED BY NSX
MANAGER DURING
INSTALLATION
MINIMUM OR MAXIMUM
OF 3 NODES PER CLUSTER
MANAGES ALL LOGICAL AND
RUNTIME NETWORK
INFORMATION
COLLECTS VM NETWORK
INFORMATION AND
DISTRIBUTE TO OTHER
HOSTS IN THE NETWORK
RELIABLY STORE ALL
INFORMATION IN CASE OF
FAILURE
SUPPORTS CLI FOR
TROUBLESHOOTING
PURPOSES

4. NSX
Controller
Cluster
NSX Controller cluster communicated with NSX
Manager using secure API. It also relies on SSL
connection to communicate with vSphere ESXi
component called user world agent(UWA).
UWA gathers information and executes according to
cluster instructions
Slicing
• To distribute processing load among its members, it uses concept of
slicing, where all network virtualization objects are distributed
across the nodes at least twice to guarantee recovery after a
controller node failure

5. 3.NSX Data
Plane
vSwitch
It is comprised by the combination of vDS and hypervisor
kernel modules configured in each host by the NSX
Manager
Performs Encapsulation routing and firewalling in the
hypervisor
NSX Edge Services Gateway
• Dedicated to the communication between physical and virtual networks
created within NSX
• Offers, advanced routing, network address translation, firewalling, load-
balancing and VPN

6. Anti Affinity
Rule
• An Anti-affinity rule can be created on
vSphere Distributed Resource
scheduler to avoid having two or more
nodes automatically migrated to a
single host