VMware NSX replaces the rigid, complex and vendor-specific network and security solutions found in most data centers, and replaces them with a completely new operational model for networking. This model breaks through current physical network barriers and allows data center operators to achieve orders-of-magnitude better agility and economics.
By bringing the operational model of a virtual machine to your data center network, you can transform the economics of network and security operations. NSX lets you treat your physical network as a pool of transport capacity, with network and security services attached to VMs with a policy-driven approach.
NSX network virtualization is a transformative architecture that enables the full potential of a Software-Defined Data Center, making it possible to create and run entire networks in parallel on top of existing network hardware. This results in faster deployment of workloads, as well as greater agility in the face of increasingly dynamic data centers.
A flexible and agile solution
Similar to virtual machines for compute, virtual networks are programmatically provisioned and managed independent of underlying hardware. NSX reproduces the entire network model in software, enabling any network topology—from simple to complex multi-tier networks—to be created and provisioned in seconds.
Any application – Workloads/applications need not be modified in any way, as the virtual network appears no different to them than the physical network.
Any hypervisor – Out-of-the box support is available for many hypervisors (e.g., Xen, KVM, and VMware ESXi), while coverage can be extended to others (e.g., Microsoft Hyper-V) by re-configuring them to incorporate standard vSwitch capabilities.
Any network infrastructure – Hardware independence is achieved based on the fact that NSX virtual networks require nothing more than connectivity and packet-forwarding from the underlying IP infrastructure.
Any cloud management platform – Out-of-the-box support is available for many cloud management platforms (including CloudStack, OpenStack, VMware vCloud Automation Center,), and integration with other management platforms is provided through the NSX API.
NSX reproduces the entire networking environment in software, including L2, L3 and L4–L7 network services within each virtual network. NSX offers a distributed logical architecture for L2–L7 services, provisioning them programmatically when virtual machines are deployed and moving them with the virtual machines.
With NSX, you already have the physical network resources you need for a next-generation data center.
Ask your Zones account executive to put you in touch with one of our solutions architects, who can detail the ease and value of deploying the VMware NSX network virtualization platform in your environment. If you don’t have a dedicated Zones account executive, call 800-408-ZONES and we’ll set you up.