What's New in VMware VCF Networking / NSX (VCF 5.2)

Introduction

VMware VCF Networking / NSX introduces several enhancements aimed at simplifying the adoption of virtual networking, improving performance, and providing greater flexibility. This article explores the latest features and their benefits for your IT infrastructure.

• Simplify the Adoption of Virtual Networking

A new feature allows administrators to easily onboard vSphere backed workloads into NSX segments.

This includes guided setup processes and comprehensive documentation to assist with configuration and management within NSX Manager. This allows you to non-disruptively migrate those workloads, provide validations of those workloads thought this workload process.

• Extra-Large NSX Appliances

Accommodates larger workloads and higher performance requirements. The introduction of extra-large NSX appliances allows organizations to scale their network infrastructure to meet the demands of large and complex environments. These appliances provide greater capacity and performance, supporting more virtual networks and services.

• TEP Performance Enhancements

Improves the performance and efficiency of network tunneling.

With the Edge, you have 2 or more TEPs on the Edge node. The transport nodes would align its connectivity of all the VMs traffic to a singular connection to the Edge Nodes TEP. Edge Nodes would provide an ability to utilize multiple TEPs, but traffic from each segment would be aligned to a Specific Edge TEP. This providing us some enchantment, but didn't provide a true bidirectional traffic flow between the host as well as between edge TEP.

From NSX 4.2 with the edge Node you can create a TEP Group. You take 2 or more of those Edge TEPs, you place them in a TEP Group. That means, even on a singular segment of an ESXi transport nodes connected through that TEP it will do a per flow managed setup between each host and edge TEP in the Edge TEP Group.

This is particularly beneficial for environments with high volumes of network traffic and those that rely heavily on tunneling technologies.

• Higher Performance with NSX Edge

Improved performance for NSX Edge enhances the throughput and reliability of edge networking services. The update includes several improvements to NSX Edge, increasing its performance and reliability.

Packets per second (PPS) are significantly increased and allowing to provide higher performance as well as the bandwidth throughput.

Now Edge nodes are doubling performance thought the enhancement that VMware providing without requirement of using a DPU!

This ensures that edge networking services can handle higher volumes of traffic and provide more stable and consistent performance. Now Edges are able to exceed what previously was capped at somewhere near ~18Gbps and double for fully utilization of 25Gbps / 40Gbps of NICs.

• Configure an Isolated Domain with a Shared NSX Instance

Allows multiple domains to share a single NSX instance while maintaining isolation. This feature enables organizations to configure isolated network domains that utilize a shared NSX instance. It ensures that each domain operates independently, enhancing security and reducing resource overhead. This is particularly useful for multi-tenant environments and scenarios requiring strict separation of network traffic.

• Dual DPU Support and use-cases

Now, finally, we can manage multiple DPU instances with a single image like you have the single DPU inside within one remediation cycle.

You can use the scheme with High Availability and A-S scheme.

Or separate dVS and make an isolation between switches with 2 DPUs.

Conclusion

The latest updates in VMware VCF Networking / NSX bring significant enhancements that simplify virtual networking, improve performance, and provide greater flexibility. These features help organizations optimize their network infrastructure, ensuring that it can meet the demands of modern IT environments.