In NSX Advanced Load Balancer, two new license editions have been introduced. The following are the various editions supported on NSX Advanced Load Balancer:
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VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Enterprise Edition
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VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer – Basic Edition
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VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer essentials for Tanzu
The next section explains the detailed feature list for each of the editions.
Feature Comparison
| Categories |
Feature |
Essentials |
Basic |
Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local Traffic Management |
L4 LB |
TCP & UDP Fast PathNo SSL/TLS |
TCP & UDP Fast Path & ProxyNo L4 SSL/TLS |
TCP, UDP, DNS, SIP, RADIUSDSR, TLS support, PROXY protocol support |
| L7 LB |
X |
Limited to basic L7 features; no HTTP/2 |
HTTP/2, content rewrite, compression, caching |
|
| L3/4 Policies |
X |
Policies limited to connection drops; No DataScript support |
Full-featured, including DataScripts and live IP Reputation |
|
| L7 Policies |
X |
Basic match and actions |
Match on: IPReputation DB, string groups and much more; Actions to: Rate-limit, ICAP and much more |
|
| Global Traffic Management |
Global Server Load Balancing |
X |
X |
Enterprise grade GSLB |
| Application Security |
SSL/TLS |
X |
Very limited feature-set |
Dynamic CRLs, OCSP stapling, TLSv1.3, HSM, and cert management |
| Application Rate Limiting |
X |
X |
Rate limiters can be applied for L4, L7, DNS, and WAF |
|
| DDoS Protection |
X |
X |
L3, L4, and L7 DDos protection |
|
| Intelligent WAF |
X |
X |
CRS, learning/PSM, IPReputation, application signatures, bot detection |
|
| Container Ingress |
Service Type LB |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Container Ingress |
X |
Limited Ingress |
Full Ingress; DNS and GSLB integration; Multi K8s cluster & multi-AZ support |
|
| Software Defined Platform |
Administration |
Basic LB administration |
Basic LB administration |
Fully multi-tenant & granular RBAC; Rich alerts and events; Various 3rd part integrations; Integrations with various IDPs |
| Scale and HA |
Active/Standby only |
Active/Standby only |
Active/Active deployments; BGP and ECMP support; Autoscale of load balancers |
|
| Flexible upgrades |
X |
X |
Flexible LCM across tenants/clouds/se-groups |
|
| Ecosystem automationvCenter |
vCenter |
No Access Cloud |
Native integrations with all major public & private clouds and container orchestration platforms |
|
| Pulse |
X |
X |
Enhanced case management; Live Security Threat Updates |
|
| Advanced Analytics |
Application Visibility/Analytics |
X |
X |
Advanced application telemetry; Log insights |
How Licensing Editions Work
The followings are a few points regarding how the licensing editions work on a NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller:
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The Enterprise Edition is the default licensing tier for a NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller. A new NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller is set up to be in the Enterprise Edition licensing tier.
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Free Enterprise edition trial licenses are packaged with the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controllers to be used for evaluation. Customers can utilize all features on the NSX Advanced Load Balancer platform using these trial licenses. Please contact your NSX Advanced Load Balancer Networks representative for more details.
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A NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller can be set up in any one of the license licensing tiers, but, the entire Controller cluster set-up will operate in a single license edition tier only. All applications and Service Engines would belong to that licensing tier. All applications and Service Engines would belong to that licensing tier.
-
A NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller can be configured to operate in any one of the license editions, but the entire Controller cluster set-up will only operate in that license edition.
-
A NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller can be configured to operate in any one of the license editions, but the entire Controller cluster set-up will only operate in that license edition.
-
The License tier for the NSX Advanced Load Balancer Controller cluster set-up can be changed from one edition to another without any disruptions of traffic or any downtime.
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A free trial license with all the NSX Advanced Load Balancer features is available for evaluation. Please contact your NSX Advanced Load Balancer representative for more details.
