By using uplink profiles, you can apply consistent policy on the uplinks of the N-VDS instance on each NSX Edge appliance. The uplink profile for the NSX Edge appliances supports the VLANs for connection to physical Layer 3 devices.

A transport node can participate in an overlay and VLAN network. Uplink profiles define policies for the links from the NSX Edge transport nodes to top of rack switches. Uplink profiles are containers for the properties or capabilities for the network adapters. Uplink profiles are applied to the N-VDS of the edge node.

Uplink profiles can use either load balance source or failover order teaming. If using load balance source, multiple uplinks can be active. If using failover order, only a single uplink can be active.

Teaming can be configured by using the default teaming policy or a user-defined named teaming policy. You can use named teaming policies to pin traffic segments to designated edge uplinks.

Table 1. Design Decisions on the NSX Edge Uplink Policy

Decision ID

Design Decision

Design Justification

Design Implication

VCF-MGMT-NSX-EDGE-NET-006

Create one uplink profile for the edge nodes with three teaming policies.

  • Default teaming policy of load balance source with both active uplinks uplink-1 and uplink-2.

  • Named teaming policy of failover order with a single active uplink uplink-1 without standby uplinks.

  • Named teaming policy of failover order with a single active uplink uplink-2 without standby uplinks.

  • An NSX Edge node that uses a single N-VDS can have only one uplink profile.

  • For increased resiliency and performance, supports the concurrent use of both edge uplinks through both physical NICs on the ESXi hosts.

  • The default teaming policy increases overlay performance and availability by using multiple TEPs, and balancing of overlay traffic.

  • By using named teaming policies, you can connect an edge uplink to a specific host uplink and from there to a specific top of rack switch in the data center.

  • Enables ECMP in each availability zone because the NSX Edge nodes can uplink to the physical network over two different VLANs.

None.