NSX Editions

  • NSX Networking for VMware Cloud Foundation

    For organizations who need workload connectivity as part of VMware Cloud Foundation. This edition is provided as part of the VMware Cloud Foundation suite and is not sold as a stand-alone product.

  • VMware vDefend Firewall

    VMware vDefend Firewall is a software-defined Layer 2-7 firewall purpose-built to secure virtualized workloads in a private cloud. It provides stateful firewalling capabilities that can be used by organizations to protect against the lateral movement of threats. VMware vDefend Firewall is available in two form factors: a Distributed Firewall that can be deployed at each vSphere workload and a Gateway Firewall that can be deployed on a vSphere host, either as a Virtual Machine (VM) or as an ISO image on a physical server.

    Requires purchase of NSX Networking for VMware Cloud Foundation.

  • VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention

    VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP) is a software-defined Layer 2–7 firewall purpose-built to secure virtualized workloads in a private cloud. It provides stateful firewalling with threat prevention capabilities that protect organizations against advanced threats. ATP combines multiple detection technologies—Intrusion Detection/Prevention System (IDS/IPS), Network Sandboxing, and Network Traffic Analysis (NTA)—with aggregation, correlation, and context engines from Network Detection and Response (NDR). Requires purchase of NSX Networking for VMware Cloud Foundation.

  • VMware vDefend Advanced Threat Prevention Add-On

    This add-on edition to allow customers to purchase advanced threat prevention functionality and move from VMware vDefend Firewall to VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention. With the purchase of this add-on a customer who had VMware vDefend Firewall will have the equivalent features of VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention.

NSX Licensing Model

Each edition of NSX is offered in various types of license models. This includes the following:

License Type

Description

Perpetual License

Perpetual licenses activated by license key.

On-premises Subscription

Subscription licenses activated by license key. Entitlement terminates upon end of subscription.

The license metrics available for NSX editions are as follows:

Metric

Description

CPU

Entitlement based on CPU socket.

Core

Entitlement based on CPU core.

Concurrent User

Entitlement based on concurrent user.

Virtual Machine

Entitlement based on virtual machine.

This table outlines which license model and metric is available for each NSX edition.

Edition

Perpetual License

On-premises Subscription

NSX On-premises Subscription Editions

NSX Networking for VMware Cloud Foundation

None

Per Core

VMware vDefend Firewall

None

Per Core

VMware vDefend Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention

None

Per Core

VMware vDefend Advanced Threat Prevention Add-On

None

Per Core

NSX Editions No Longer Offered for Sale

The following editions are no longer offered for sale. Customers can upgrade these older editions to currently offered editions.

Edition

End of Sale

License Types

Metric

Recommendation

NSX for vSphere

May 2016

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU

Convert existing licenses to NSX Enterprise and optionally upgrade to NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Multi-Hypervisor

2015

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Virtual Machine

Convert existing licenses to NSX Enterprise and optionally upgrade to NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Standard (obsolete edition)

June 2018

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU

Upgrade to NSX Professional, NSX Advanced or NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Advanced (obsolete edition)

June 2018

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU

Convert to NSX Advanced or upgrade to NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Enterprise (obsolete edition)

June 2018

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU

Upgrade to NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Data Center Standard

October 29th, 2021

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Concurrent User

Upgrade to NSX Professional, NSX Advanced or NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Data Center Professional

October 29th, 2021

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Concurrent User

Expansion on NSX Professional or upgrade to NSX Advanced or NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Data Center Advanced

October 29th, 2021

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Concurrent User

Expansion on NSX Advanced or upgrade to NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Data Center Enterprise Plus

October 29th, 2021

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Concurrent User

Expansions on NSX Enterprise Plus.

NSX Data Center for Remote Office / Branch Office

October 29th, 2021

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

Virtual Machine

Expansion on NSX Remote Office / Branch Office.

NSX-T Professional

December 11th, 2023

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Core

NSX-T Advanced

December 11th, 2023

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Core, Concurrent User

NSX-T Enterprise Plus

December 11th, 2023

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

CPU, Core, Concurrent User

NSX-T Remote Office / Branch Office

December 11th, 2023

Perpetual, On-premises Subscription

Virtual Machine

NSX Distributed Firewall

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core, Concurrent User

NSX Distributed Firewall with Threat Prevention

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core, Concurrent User

NSX Distributed Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core, Concurrent User

NSX Firewall for Baremetal Servers

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core

NSX Gateway Firewall

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core

NSX Gateway Firewall with Threat Prevention

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core

NSX Gateway Firewall with Advanced Threat Prevention

December 11th, 2023

On-premises Subscription

Core

Note: All term subscription CPU socket offerings are no longer offered for sale as of February 3rd, 2023.