Transport zones indicate which hosts and VMs can use a particular network. A transport zone can span one or more host clusters.

As a vSphere administrator, you use the default transport zones or create the following ones:

  • An overlay transport zone that is used by the Supervisor Control Plane VMs.
  • A VLAN transport zone for the NSX Edge nodes to use for uplinks to the physical network.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select System > Fabric > Transport Zones > Add.
  3. Enter a name for the transport zone and optionally a description.
  4. Select a traffic type.
    You can select Overlay or VLAN.
    The following transport zones exist by default:
    • A VLAN transport zone with name nsx-vlan-transportzone.
    • An overlay transport zone with name nsx-overlay-transportzone.
  5. (Optional) Enter one or more uplink teaming policy names.
    The segments attached to the transport zones use these named teaming policies. If the segments do not find a matching named teaming policy, then the default uplink teaming policy is used.

Results

The new transport zone appears on the Transport Zones page.

Create an IP Pool for Host Tunnel Endpoint IP Addresses

Create IP pools for the ESXi host tunnel endpoints (TEPs). TEPs are the source and destination IP addresses used in the external IP header to identify the ESXi hosts that originate and end the NSX encapsulation of overlay frames. You can use DHCP or manually configured IP pools for TEP IP addresses.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select Networking > IP Address Pools > Add IP Address Pool.
  3. Enter the following IP pool details.
    Option Description
    Name and Description Enter the IP pool name and optional description.

    For example, ESXI-TEP-IP-POOL.
    IP Ranges Enter the IP allocation range.

    For example, 192.23.213.158 - 192.23.213.160
    Gateway Enter the gateway IP address.

    For example, 192.23.213.253.
    CIDR Enter the network address in a CIDR notation.

    For example, 192.23.213.0/24.
  4. Click Add and Apply.

Results

Verify that the TEP IP pools you created are listed in the IP Pool page.

Create an IP Pool for Edge Nodes

Create IP pools for the Edge Nodes. The TEP addresses are not required to be routable. You can use any IP addressing scheme that enables the Edge TEP to talk to the Host TEP.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select Networking > IP Address Pools > Add IP Address Pool.
  3. Enter the following IP pool details.
    Option Description
    Name and Description Enter the IP pool name and optional description.

    For example, EDGE-TEP-IP-POOL.
    IP Ranges Enter the IP allocation range.

    For example, 192.23.213.1 - 192.23.213.10.
    Gateway Enter the gateway IP address.

    For example, 192.23.213.253.
    CIDR Enter the network address in a CIDR notation.

    For example, 192.23.213.0/24.
  4. Click Add and Apply.

Results

Verify that the IP pools you created are listed in the IP Pool page.

Create a Host Uplink Profile

A host uplink profile defines policies for the uplinks from the ESXi hosts to NSX segments.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select System > Fabric > Profiles > Uplink Profiles > Add.
  3. Enter an uplink profile name, and optionally, an uplink profile description.
    For example, ESXI-UPLINK-PROFILE.
  4. In the Teaming section, click Add to add a naming teaming policy, and configure a Failover Order policy.
    A list of active uplinks is specified, and each interface on the transport node is pinned to one active uplink. This configuration allows use of several active uplinks at the same time.
  5. Configure active and standby uplinks.
    For example, configure uplink-1 as the active uplink and uplink-2 as the standby uplink.
  6. Enter a transport VLAN value.
    The transport VLAN set in the uplink profile tags overlay traffic and the VLAN ID is used by the tunnel endpoint (TEP).
    For example, 1060.
  7. Enter the MTU value.
    The default value for uplink profile MTU is 1600.
    Note: The value must be at least 1600 but not higher than the MTU value on the physical switches and the vSphere Distributed Switch.

Create an Edge Uplink Profile

Create an uplink profile with the failover order teaming policy with one active uplink for edge virtual machine overlay traffic.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select System > Fabric > Profiles > Uplink Profiles > Add.
  3. Enter an uplink profile name, and optionally, add an uplink profile description.
    For example, EDGE-UPLINK-PROFILE.
  4. In the Teaming section, click Add to add a naming teaming policy, and configure a Failover policy.
    A list of active uplinks is listed, and each interface on the transport node is pinned to one active uplink. This configuration allows use of several active uplinks at the same time.
  5. Configure an active uplinks.
    For example, configure uplink-1 as active uplink.
  6. View the uplinks in the Uplink Profile page.

Create a Transport Node Profile

A transport node profile defines how NSX is installed and configured on the hosts in a particular cluster the profile is attached to.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have created an overlay transport zone.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select System > Fabric > Profiles > Transport Node Profiles > Add.
  3. Enter a name for the transport node profile and optionally a description.
    For example, HOST-TRANSPORT-NODE-PROFILE.
  4. In the New Node Switch section, Select Type as VDS.
  5. Select Mode as Standard.
  6. Select the vCenter Server and the Distributed Switch names from the list.
    For example, DSwitch
  7. Select the overlay transport zone created previously.
    For example, NSX-OVERLAY-TRANSPORTZONE.
  8. Select the host uplink profile created previously.
    For example, ESXI-UPLINK-PROFILE.
  9. Select Use IP Pool from the IP Assignment list.
  10. Select the host TEP pool created previously.
    For example, ESXI-TEP-IP-POOL.
  11. In the Teaming Policy Switch Mapping, click the edit icon and map the uplinks defined in the NSX uplink profile with the vSphere Distributed Switch uplinks.
    For example, map uplink-1 (active) to Uplink 1 and uplink-2 (standby) to Uplink 2.
  12. Click Add.
  13. Verify that the profile that you created in listed in the Transport Node Profiles page.

Configure NSX on the Cluster

To install NSX and prepare the overlay TEPs, apply the transport node profile to the vSphere cluster.

Prerequisites

Verify that you have created a transport node profile.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the NSX Manager.
  2. Select System > Fabric > Nodes > Host Transport Nodes.
  3. From the Managed By drop-down menu, select an existing vCenter Server.
    The page lists the available vSphere clusters.
  4. Select the compute cluster on which you want to configure NSX.
  5. Click Configure NSX.
  6. Select the transport node profile created previously and click Apply.
    For example, HOST-TRANSPORT-NODE-PROFILE.
  7. From the Host Transport Node page, verify that the NSX configuration state is Success and NSX Manager connectivity status of hosts in the cluster is Up.

Results

The transport node profile created previously is applied to the vSphere cluster to install NSX and prepare the overlay TEPs.