VMware NSX Installation
Table of Contents
Introduction
Welcome to the VMware NSX installation guide. We will cover all installation steps required for successful deployment of VMware NSX. For you, we have prepared a simple installation scenario to get you started with VMware NSX and to get a good insight on how to install NSX in your environment. There are a few requirements that should be met in order to perform a successful installation.
Gain knowledge of what would be the best hardware to install NSX software, because it is important that everything runs smoothly and without any issues. If you plan to take NSX certification, with this installation guide you will gain practical knowledge. If you worry about licensing you can use your NSX environment free for 60 days by default.
VMware NSX installation
The installation process can be divided into five steps:
1.NSX Manager installation
NSX Manager is installed in the form of virtual appliance, prepared virtual machine that runs in vCenter as any other virtual machine. You can download the latest NSX Manager here.
2. Registration of the NSX Manager with the vCenter
NSX Manager is up and running and now it is the time to register it with vCenter.
3.NSX Controllers deployment
The first job of NSX Manager is the deployment of NSX Controllers.
4.Installation of ESXI hosts
NSX Manager prepares ESXI hosts for NSX environment installing various types of NSX VIBs.
5. Installation NSX Edge and network service
To have L3 device ready for usage, NSX Manager deploys NSX Edge, L3 router for north-south traffic.
Basic prerequisites
- vCenter 6.0 (minimum)
- Distributed switches configured with MTU 1600
- VMware ESXI 6.0 (minimum)
- DNS and NTP servers
Resources:
NSX Manager (vCPU: 4, Memory: 16GB, Disk: 60GB)
NSX Controller (vCPU: 4GB, Memory: 4GB, Disk: 28GB)
NSX Edge min / max (vCPU: 1/6, Memory: 512MB / 8GB, Disk: 1GB / 3GB)
Guest Introspection (vCPU: 2GB, Memory: 2GB, Disk: 5GB)
Network latency: 150 ms RTT (between all components)
Interoperability: Check the requirements here.
Ports and Protocols: Check the requirements here.
Installation scenario
In our VMware NSX installation scenario we will use only one cluster – Compute. Installation components include: vCenter, NSX Manager, NSX Controllers, 3 ESXI hosts, NSX Edge Gateway,DLR and NSX logical switches. Two basic networks – management and production network. Management network will host all infrastructure machines – vCenter, ESXI hosts, NSX Manager, etc. Production network is used for access for client machines and physical default gateway. We have 3 VXLAN networks: Web, DB and Application tier.
VMware NSX installation scenario
Software
| Component | Version |
| vCenter | 6.0 4541948 |
| ESXI host | U2 3620759 |
| NSX Manager | 6.3.5.7119875 |
ESXI hosts
We have used HP (US) servers, perfect combination for enterprise solution:
HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 6130 1P 64GB-R P408i-a 8SFF 800W RPS Performance Server
Base Model #P06423-B21
Edit configuration
Product #P06423-B21
HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 6130 1P 64GB-R P408i-a 8SFF 800W RPS Performance Server
Product #826866-B21
HPE DL380 Gen10 Intel Xeon-Gold 6130 (2.1GHz/16-core/120W) Processor Kit
Product #815100-B21
HPE 32GB (1x32GB) Dual Rank x4 DDR4-2666 CAS-19-19-19 Registered Smart Memory Kit
Product #870753-B21
HPE 300GB SAS 12G Enterprise 15K SFF (2.5in) SC 3yr Wty Digitally Signed Firmware HDD
Product #E6U64ABE
HPE iLO Advanced Electronic License with 3yr Support on iLO Licensed Features
Product #H8QP7E
HPE 3 Year Foundation Care 24×7 DL380 Gen10 Service
For home lab environment we recommend:
Compute Dell-PowerEdge-R710
2x Intel Xeon X5670 – 2.93GHz 6 Core
PERC H700 RAID Controller w/ 512MB Cache
64GB DDR3 RAM
6x Dell R-Series 3.5″ SATA 2TB 7.2K Drive
2x 870W PSU for Dell R Series
4 x embedded Broadcom® NetXtreme® II 5709c Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Network Linksys Business LGS108 8-Port
Storage WD 2TB My Cloud Personal Network Attached Storage – NAS
Logical switches (vSS/vDS)
Standard switch – vSwitch0 (Management Network)
Distributed switch – Transport vDS (Transport network used for communication within a data center)
Distributed switch – Edge vDS (Network used for communication between data center and outside world)*
* Set MTU size to 1600 on vDS and on your physical network if you do not use nested virtualization.
Storage
We will only use local datastore. The size of each datastore is 280GB.
Networks
Management network
A network that connects all management components such as:
ESXI hosts
NSX Manager
NSX Controllers
NSX Edge
We will connect the management network to the standard switch.
DNS, NTP and AD services are also part of management network.
Production network
Network that is used for client access and exit to internet. NSX Edge gateway for north-south traffic will use default gateway (physical network device) to access the outside world via static route.
Default gateway – 172.20.20.1
NSX Edge interfaces
| Interface name | Interface type | IP address |
| Uplink | Uplink | 172.20.20.10 |
| Transit uplink | Internal | 172.20.1.2 |
Transit network
A transit network is used to connect Distributed Logical Router (DLR) to NSX Edge to access the outside world. DLR and NSX Edge are both logical routers. DLR is used for east-west traffic routing and NSX Edge for north-south routing. We need network that will be used to connect both routers.
Transit network – 172.22.1.0/28 (N-S, E-W routing)
Transit network will be installed on vDS on each port group.
DLR interfaces
| Interface type | Interface name | IP address |
| Internal | Transit | 172.22.1.1 |
| Internal | Web Tier | 172.21.11.10 |
| Internal | App Tier | 172.21.10.10 |
| Internal | DB Tier | 172.21.12.10 |
VXLAN network
VXLAN network in the NSX world is used to transmit data over a physical network. VTEPs are installed and presented as VMkernels. Each host contains two VTEP interfaces due to the load distribution, and we will define a pool of 6 IP addresses. Each subnet is marked with a special tag called VNI, so we will reserve a few in the range of 5000 to 5100. VNIs are used as VXLAN internal id like VLAN IDs in the physical world.
IP Addresses:
VTEP POOL: 192.168.5.33 – 192.168.5.39
VNI segment: 5000-5100
VXLAN network will be installed on vDS as one of the port groups.
VM networks
This network is used by virtual machines. Each network uses different subnet depending on the service:
Application server – 172.21.10.10
Web server – 172.21.11.10
Database Server – 172.21.12.10
VM networks will be installed on vDS on each port group.
IP address list
| Component | Network | Switch | IP address |
| ESXI host1 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.30 |
| ESXI host2 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.31 |
| ESXI host3 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.32 |
| NSX Manager | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.13 |
| NSX Controller 1 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.14 |
| NSX Controller 2 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.15 |
| NSX Controller 3 | Management network | vSS | 172.20.30.16 |
| App server | VM network 1 | Transport vDS | 172.21.10.10 |
| DB server | VM network 2 | Transport vDS | 172.21.12.10 |
| Web server | VM network 3 | Transport vDS | 172.21.11.10 |
| VTEP pool | VTEP | VMkernel | 192.168.5.33 -192.168.5.39 |
| DLR | Transit network | Transport vDS | 172.22.1.1 |
| NSX Edge | Transit network | Transport vDS | 172.22.1.2 |
| NSX Edge | Edge newtork | Edge vDS | 172.20.20.10 |