VMware NSX Controller Deployment

The NSX for vSphere control plane manages logical networks and the overlay transport, and it must be configured in one of the following modes:

Multicast Mode ‒ If multicast replication mode is chosen for a given logical switch, VMware NSX relies on the Layer 2 and Layer 3 multicast capability of the physical network to ensure VXLAN encapsulated multi-destination traffic is sent to all the VXLAN tunnel end points (VTEPs). The control plane uses multicast IP addresses on the physical network in this mode.
Note: The use of multicast IP addresses is recommended only when upgrading from existing VXLAN deployments. This also requires the configuration of PIM/IGMP on the physical network.

Unicast Mode ‒ In this mode, the control plane is managed by the NSX Controller instances and all replication is done locally on the host. No multicast IP addresses or physical network configurations are required. This mode is very well suited for smaller deployments.

Hybrid Mode ‒ An optimized version of unicast mode, where local traffic replication for the subnet is offloaded to the physical network. This mode requires IGMP snooping on the first hop switch, and IGMP querier must be available. However, PIM is not required.

The following are the resource requirements:
4 vCPUs
4 GB of memory (2 GB are reserved)
20 GB of disk space.

Log in to the vSphere Web Client and click Networking & Security.

Select Installation under the Networking & Security section and select the Management tab.

In the Add Controller dialog box:

1. Select the appropriate NSX Manager from the NSX Manager drop-down menu.
2. From the Datacenter drop-down menu, select the data center where you are adding the node.
3. From the Cluster/Resource Pool drop-down menu, select the appropriate cluster or resource pool where the NSX Controller is to be deployed.
4. From the Datastore drop-down menu, select the datastore in which the NSX Controller will be deployed.
5. In the Connected To selection box, click Select to choose the logical switch, port group, or distributed port group to which the node is to be connected.
6. In the IP Pool selection box, click Select to choose the IP pool from which IP addresses are to be assigned to the node.
7. Type and re-type a password for the NSX Controller.
8. Click OK.

Deploy two additional NSX Controller nodes to provide a greater level of resiliency.

NOTE: NSX for vSphere 6.3 only supports clusters with three controller nodes.

Categories: NSX

Victor Wu

Chief Architect, Blogger, Author at Dell EMC Knowledge Sharing & Packt