The HCX Mobility Optimized Networking (MON) feature routes network traffic based on locality of the source and destination virtual machines. MON operation requires the specific configuration of the Network Extension parameters and the network environment between the source and the destination sites.

General Requirements for MON

Systems using MON must have license entitlement to HCX Enterprise services.

Requirements for MON-Enabled Virtual Machines

  • VMware Tools must be installed.

Environmental Requirements for MON

  • Extended networks meet all NSX requirements. See Requirements for Network Extension

  • An NSX Tier-1 router connected to a Tier-0 router must exist in the cloud environment prior to enabling this feature.

    Note:

    Layer-2 network extensions can only terminate on a Tier-1 router.

  • The default Gateway IP and the DHCP Server IP cannot be the same. The Gateway for the extended segment can provide DHCP services but must have a different IP address used for the DHCP server.

Limitations of MON

  • MON does not provide traffic optimization from MON-enabled virtual machines to virtual machines on other extended networks without MON.

  • MON provides optimization in the Cloud. MON does not provide optimization in the source.

  • For additional information related to running MON on VMware Cloud on AWS, see HCX Mobility Optimized Networking for VMware Cloud on AWS.

  • When a virtual machine with multiple NICs is connected to multiple MON enabled extended networks, and Target Router Location is changed, that change applies to all the interfaces.