Before installing NSX, prepare your vSphere environment and make sure that the requirements documented in the NSX Installation Guide are met.
- For NSX Manager and host transport node, see the section NSX Manager VM and Host Transport Node System Requirements in the NSX Installation Guide. Note the recommended size of the NSX Manager VM that is appropriate for your NSX deployment and the VM's vCPU and memory requirements.
- For NSX Edge, see the section NSX Edge VM System Requirements in the NSX Installation Guide. Note the recommended size of the Edge VM that is appropriate for your NSX deployment and the VM's vCPU and memory requirements.
- Download the NSX Manager and NSX Edge .ova files. Choose "NSX Manager / NSX Global Manager / NSX Cloud Service Manager for VMware ESXi."
- The deployment of NSX documented in this guide uses a vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS). The VDS version must be 7.0 or later.
The following tables list the components, objects, and information that will be needed when you install NSX. The object names, VLAN numbers, and IP addresses are examples. Replace them with names, numbers, and addresses that are appropriate for your environment.
| Component | Notes |
|---|---|
| vCenter Server (VC) | In a datacenter (named DC1 in this guide) in VC, create a cluster (NSX- cluster) . |
| ESXi hosts | Three hosts are required, named ESXi-1, ESXi-2, and ESXi-3. Put them in NSX-cluster. ESXi-1 and ESXi-2 must have enough CPU cores and memory for one manager node, one edge node, and one test VM. ESXi-3 must have enough CPU cores and memory for one manager node and one test VM. The number of CPU cores and the amount of memory depend on the size of the manager and edge nodes that is appropriate for your deployment. |
| Storage | There must be enough storage for 3 manager VMs, 2 edge VMs and 3 test VMs. Approximately 1.4 TB. The storage you reserve is referred to as Storage-1 in this guide. |
The following networking information is required when installing NSX. Some of the information should already exist. You can gather the rest of the information before starting the installation to make the process go more smoothly. The subnet mask is /24 for all the IP addresses in this guide.
| Setting | Notes | Your Value |
|---|---|---|
| VLAN 11 | For management traffic | |
| VLAN 12 | For NSX overlay traffic | |
| VLAN 50 | For traffic between the tier-0 gateway and physical router | |
| PG-mgmt | VC dvportgroup backed by VLAN 11 (management VLAN) | |
| Management subnet | 192.168.10.0/24, default gateway: 192.168.10.1, subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 | |
| TEP (tunnel endpoint) subnet | 192.168.20.0/24, default gateway: 192.168.20.1, subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 | |
| VC IP address | 192.168.10.10 (VLAN 11) | |
| ESXi-1 IP address | 192.168.10.11 (VLAN 11), 192.168.20.11 (VLAN 12) | |
| ESXi-2 IP address | 192.168.10.12 (VLAN 11), 192.168.20.12 (VLAN 12) | |
| ESXi-3 IP address | 192.168.10.13 (VLAN 11), 192.168.20.13 (VLAN 12) | |
| NSX-mgr-1 IP address | 192.168.10.14 (VLAN 11) | |
| NSX-mgr-2 IP address | 192.168.10.15 (VLAN 11) | |
| NSX-mgr-3 IP address | 192.168.10.16 (VLAN 11) | |
| Edge-1 IP address | 192.168.10.17 (VLAN 11), 192.168.20.17 (VLAN 12) | |
| Edge-2 IP address | 192.168.10.18 (VLAN 11), 192.168.20.18 (VLAN 12) | |
| Physical router's downlink IP address | 192.168.50.1 (VLAN 50) | |
| Tier-0 gateway's external interface IP address on Edge-1 | 192.168.50.11 (VLAN 50) | |
| Tier-0 gateway's external interface IP address on Edge-2 | 192.168.50.12 (VLAN 50) | |
| Tier-0 gateway's virtual IP (VIP) | 192.168.50.13 (VLAN 50) | |
| Segment 1 subnet | 10.1.1.0/24 | |
| Segment 2 subnet | 10.1.2.0/24 | |
| Segment 3 subnet | 10.2.1.0/24 | |
| Test-VM-1 IP address | 10.1.1.11 | |
| Test-VM-2 IP address | 10.1.2.11 | |
| Test-VM-3 IP address | 10.2.1.11 |
