Create Transport Zones

Transport zones dictate which hosts and, therefore, which VMs can participate in the use of a particular network. A transport zone does this by limiting the hosts that can "see" a logical switch—and, therefore, which VMs can be attached to the logical switch. A transport zone can span one or more host clusters.

An NSX-T Data Center environment can contain one or more transport zones based on your requirements. A host can belong to multiple transport zones. A logical switch can belong to only one transport zone.

NSX-T Data Center does not allow connection of VMs that are in different transport zones in the Layer 2 network. The span of a logical switch is limited to a transport zone, so virtual machines in different transport zones cannot be on the same Layer 2 network.

The overlay transport zone is used by both host transport nodes and NSX Edges. When a host is added to an overlay transport zone, you can configure an N-VDS or a VDS switch on the host. When an NSX Edge transport node is added to an overlay transport zone, you can only configure an N-VDS switch.

The VLAN transport zone is used by the NSX Edge and host transport nodes for its VLAN uplinks. When an NSX Edge is added to a VLAN transport zone, a VLAN N-VDS is installed on the NSX Edge.

Procedure

From a browser, log in with admin privileges to an NSX Manager at https://<nsx-manager-ip-address>.
Select System > Fabric > Transport Zones > Add.
Enter a name for the transport zone and optionally a description.
Select a traffic type between Overlay and VLAN.
Enter one or more uplink teaming policy names. These named teaming policies can be used by logical switches attached to the transport zone. If the logical switches do not find a matching named teaming policy, then the default uplink teaming policy is used.
After you add the transport zone, go to the Transport Zones page and view the newly added transport zone.

(Optional) You can also view the new transport zone with the GET https://<nsx-mgr>/api/v1/transport-zones API call.

	
{
  "cursor": "00369b661aed-1eaa-4567-9408-ccbcfe50b416tz-vlan",
  "result_count": 2,
  "results": [
    {
      "resource_type": "TransportZone",
      "description": "comp overlay transport zone",
      "id": "efd7f38f-c5da-437d-af03-ac598f82a9ec",
      "display_name": "tz-overlay",
      "host_switch_name": "overlay-hostswitch",
      "transport_type": "OVERLAY",
      "transport_zone_profile_ids": [
        {
          "profile_id": "52035bb3-ab02-4a08-9884-18631312e50a",
          "resource_type": "BfdHealthMonitoringProfile"
        }
      ],
      "_create_time": 1459547126454,
      "_last_modified_user": "admin",
      "_system_owned": false,
      "_last_modified_time": 1459547126454,
      "_create_user": "admin",
      "_revision": 0,
      "_schema": "/v1/schema/TransportZone"
    },
    {
      "resource_type": "TransportZone",
      "description": "comp vlan transport zone",
      "id": "9b661aed-1eaa-4567-9408-ccbcfe50b416",
      "display_name": "tz-vlan",
      "host_switch_name": "vlan-uplink-hostwitch",
      "transport_type": "VLAN",
      "transport_zone_profile_ids": [
        {
          "profile_id": "52035bb3-ab02-4a08-9884-18631312e50a",
          "resource_type": "BfdHealthMonitoringProfile"
        }
      ],
      "_create_time": 1459547126505,
      "_last_modified_user": "admin",
      "_system_owned": false,
      "_last_modified_time": 1459547126505,
      "_create_user": "admin",
      "_revision": 0,
      "_schema": "/v1/schema/TransportZone"
    }
  ]
}

What to do next

Optionally, create a custom transport-zone profile and bind it to the transport zone. You can create custom transport-zone profiles using the POST /api/v1/transportzone-profiles API. There is no UI workflow for creating a transport-zone profile. After the transport-zone profile is created, you can find it to the transport zone with the PUT /api/v1/transport-zones/<transport-zone-id> API.

Create a transport node. See Create a Standalone Host or Bare Metal Server Transport Node.