The following table provides a quick glance of the address schemes supported by NSX and its components.

Table 1.
IPv4 only Dual-Stack IPv6 only
NSX Manager ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
NSX Edge Node - Management Interface ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
VMware vCenter ✔️ ✔️ ✔️
ESX - Management Interface ✔️ ✔️ ✔️

The following table provides the supported topologies for IP version configuration.

Topology # NSX Manager NSX Edge Node - Management Interface VMware vCenter ESX - Management Interface Supported Topology?
IPv4 only Dual stack^ IPv6 only* IPv4 only Dual stack^ IPv6 only* IPv4 only IPv6 only IPv4 only Dual stack^ IPv6 only
1 ✔️ — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
2 ✔️ — — ✔️ — — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Not supported
3 ✔️ — — ✔️ — — — — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
4 — ✔️ — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
5 — ✔️ — ✔️ — — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Supported
6 — ✔️ — ✔️ — — — — ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Supported
7 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Not supported
8 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Supported
9 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
10 ✔️ — — — ✔️ — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
11 ✔️ — — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Not supported
12 ✔️ — — — ✔️ — — — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
13 — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Supported
14 — ✔️ — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Supported
15 — ✔️ — — ✔️ — — — ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Supported
16 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ — Not supported
17 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ Supported
18 — — ✔️ — — ✔️ — ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ ✔️ Supported

Footnote:

  • ^ = Dual stack means both IPv4 and IPv6.
  • * = IPv6 only is unsupported.
Limitations and known issues:

  • For topology #3, adding an NSX Manager with only an IPv4 address will fail when using the Add NSX Appliance wizard on a dual stack ESXi which is onboarded to a dual stack VMware vCenter cluster using its IPv6 address.

    The workaround is to onboard the ESXi host to the VMware vCenter cluster with its IPv4 address.

  • For topology #9, when there is an IPv4 only NSX Manager and a dual stack ESX host which are registered in VMware vCenter using IPv6, there is a limitation where the ESX host cannot communicate with an IPv4 only NSX Manager.
  • For topologies #10 and #12, IPv6 to IPv4 fallback between dual stack NSX Managers and dual stack transport nodes is not supported.

Option 2

Use Case Greenfield 1:

NSX version 4.1

 Greenfield 2:

NSX version 4.1

 Greenfield 3:

NSX version 4.1
Description
  • Management dual stack
  • ESXi cluster 1 dual stack
  • ESXi cluster 2 IPv4 only
  • Management dual stack
  • VMware vCenter dual stack
  • ESXi cluster 1 IPv6 only
  • ESXi cluster 2 IPv4 only
  • VLAN-backed networks (no edge nodes deployed
  • Management dual stack
  • VMware vCenter IPv6 only
  • ESXi cluster 1 IPv6 only
  • ESXi cluster 2 IPv4 only
  • VLAN-backed networks (no edge nodes deployed)
State Final State Final State Final State
NSX version NSX 4.1 NSX 4.1 NSX 4.1
Manager - External IPv4, IPv6 IPv4, IPv6 IPv4, IPv6
Manager - Internal IPv4, IPv6 IPv4, IPv6 IPv4, IPv6
VMware vCenter IPv4, IPv6 IPv4, IPv6 IPv6
ESXi Management - Cluster 1 IPv4, IPv6 IPv6 IPv6
ESXi TEP - Cluster 1 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - MP/CCP - Cluster 1 IPv4, IPv6 - -
Edge Node - AppHA/BFD - Cluster 1 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - TEP - Cluster 1 IPv4 - -
ESXi Management - Cluster 2 IPv4 IPv4 -
ESXi TEP - Cluster 2 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - MP/CCP - Cluster 2 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - AppHA/BFD - Cluster 2 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - TEP - Cluster 2 IPv4 - -
ESXi Management - Cluster 3 IPv6 - -
ESXi TEP - Cluster 3 IPv4 - -
Edge Node - MP/CCP - Cluster 3 - - -
Edge Node - AppHA/BFD - Cluster 3 - - -
Edge Node - TEP - Cluster 3 - - -