Interfaces in the VMware Netflow context can be broadly classified into two types: Physical and SD-WAN.

  • Physical – These are Ethernet (e.g. GE1, GE2), VLAN (e.g. br-network1), or IP interfaces (e.g. PPPoE or some USB modem interfaces).
  • SD-WAN – These are point-to-point interfaces between a pair of VMware devices. On the overlay, there may be several tunnels between a pair of VMware devices. These tunnels use a proprietary protocol called VCMP that provides several features including encryption, retransmission, and more. The tunnels between two devices may be always present or may be created on-demand depending on the configuration. The end points of these tunnels are called “links” in VMware terminology. Typically, there is a "link" for each physical WAN-facing interface on an Edge.
The diagram below depicts the relationship between physical/SD-WAN interfaces, links and tunnels. On both the nodes below, GE1, GE2 and GE3 are physical interfaces. GE1 and GE2 are WAN-side interfaces and have links defined over them. In contrast, GE3 is a LAN-side interface and thus does not have a link defined over it. Tunnels are formed between links on each node. The Node1-Node2 SD-WAN interface is the overlay interface on which traffic may be sent from Node 1 to Node 2. When traffic is sent on the Node1-Node2 SD-WAN interface, the individual packets may be either:
  • Replicated on both the tunnels.
  • Load-balanced between the two tunnels.
  • Sent on only one tunnel.
The treatment of the packets depends on the type of traffic, configuration, and network conditions.

Template ID: 272

The interface option template is sent every 5 minutes by default. The timer is configurable.

Element ID (Enterprise Element ID) Name Type Description Applicable Edge Release
10

ingressInterface

unsigned32

Scope field. The index of this interface. The value matches the value of managed object ifIndex as defined in [RFC2863].

3.3.0

82

interfaceName

string

A short name uniquely describing an interface, e.g. "Eth1/0".

3.3.0
83

interfaceDescription

string

The description of an interface, e.g. "FastEthernet1/0" or "ISP connection".

3.3.0

45000 (12232)

interfaceType

unsigned8
  • 1 - Physical
  • 2 - SDWAN E2E
  • 3 - SDWAN E2DC
  • 4 - SDWAN E2C
  • 5 - Physical Sub-Interface (Supported from 3.4.0)
 3.3.0

45001 (12233)

destinationUUID

octetArray

Destination node UUID

 3.3.0

45013 (12245)

primaryIpv4Address

ipv4Address

Primary IP address of a physical interface. For SD-WAN interfaces this is always 0.0.0.0.

3.3.0