Before you install an NSX Manager or other NSX appliances, make sure that your environment meets the supported requirements.

Hypervisor Host Network Requirements

The NIC card used must be compatible with the ESXi version that is running NSX. For supported NIC card, see the VMware Compatibility Guide. To find the supported driver for the NIC card vendor, see Firmware Versions of Supported Drivers.
Tip: To quickly identify compatible cards in the Compatibility Guide, apply the following criteria:
  • Under I/O Devices, select Network.
  • Optionally, to use supported GENEVE encapsulation, under Features, select the GENEVE options.
  • Optionally, to use Enhanced Data Path, select N-VDS Enhanced Data Path.

Enhanced Data Path NIC Drivers

Download the supported NIC drivers from the Broadcom Support page.

NIC Card NIC Driver

Intel 82599

ixgben 1.1.0.26-1OEM.670.0.0.7535516

Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GbE SFP+

Intel(R) Ethernet Controller XL710 for 40GbE QSFP+

i40en 1.2.0.0-1OEM.670.0.0.8169922

Cisco VIC 1400 series nenic_ens

NSX Manager VM Resource Requirements

Thin virtual disk size is 3.8 GB and thick virtual disk size is 300 GB.

Appliance Size Memory vCPU Shares Reservations Disk Space VM Hardware Version
NSX Manager Extra Small (NSX 3.0 onwards) 8 GB 2 81920, Normal 8192 MB 300 GB 10 or later
NSX Manager Small VM ( NSX 2.5.1 onwards) 16 GB 4 163840, Normal 16384 MB 300 GB 10 or later
NSX Manager Medium VM 24 GB 6 245760, Normal 24576 MB 300 GB 10 or later
NSX Manager Large VM 48 GB 12 491520, Normal 49152 MB 300 GB 10 or later
NSX Manager Extra Large (XL) VM 96 GB 24 983040, Normal 98404 MB 400 GB 10 or later
Note: NSX Manager provides multiple roles which previously required separate appliances. This includes the policy role, the management plane role and the central control plane role. The central control plane role was previously provide by the NSX Controller appliance.

  • The NSX Manager Small VM appliance size is suitable for lab and proof-of-concept deployments, and must not be used in production.

  • The NSX Manager Medium VM appliance size is the autoselected appliance size during deployment and is suitable for typical production environments. An NSX management cluster formed using this appliance size can support up to 128 hypervisors. Starting with NSX 3.1, a single NSX Manager cluster is supported.

  • The NSX Manager Large and Extra Large VM appliance size is suitable for large-scale deployments. An NSX management cluster formed using these appliance sizes can support more than 128 hypervisors.

For maximum scale use the NSX Manager XL VM appliance size. For details on scale, go to the VMware Configuration Maximums tool at https://configmax.vmware.com/guest and select VMware NSX® from the product list.

Language Support

NSX Manager has been localized into multiple languages: English, German, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Spanish.

NSX Manager Browser Support

The following browsers are recommended for working with NSX Manager.

Browser Windows 10 Mac OS X 10.13, 10.14 Ubuntu 18.04
Google Chrome 80 Yes Yes Yes
Mozilla Firefox 72 Yes Yes Yes
Microsoft Edge 80 Yes
Apple Safari 13 Yes
Note:
  • Internet Explorer is not supported.
  • Supported Browser minimum resolution is 1280 x 800 px.
  • Language support: NSX Manager has been localized into multiple languages: English, German, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, and Spanish. However, because NSX Manager localization utilizes the browser language settings, ensure that your settings match the desired language. There is no language preference setting within the NSX Manager interface itself.

Network Latency Requirements

The maximum network latency between NSX Managers in a NSX Manager cluster is 10ms.

The maximum network latency between NSX Managers and Transport Nodes is 150ms.

Important: NSX Appliance VMs backed by vSAN clusters may see intemittent disk write latency spikes of 10+ms. This is expected due to the way VSAN handles data (burst of incoming IOs resulting in queuing of data and delay). As long as the average disk access latencycontinues to be less than 10ms, intermittent latency spike should not have impact on NSX Appliance VMs.

Storage Requirements

  • NSX appliance VMs that are backed by VSAN clusters may see intemittent disk write latency spikes of 10+ms. This is expected due to the way VSAN handles data (burst of incoming IOs resulting in queuing of data and delay). As long as the average disk access latency continues to be less than 10ms, intermittent latency spike should not have impact on NSX Appliance VMs.
  • It is recommended that NSX Managers be placed on shared storage.
  • Storage must be highly available to avoid a storage outage causing all NSX Manager file systems to be placed into read-only mode upon event of a storage failure.

    Refer to the product documentation of the storage technology you are using to know how to optimally design a highly available storage solution.