VMware NSX Reviews

I primarily use VMware NSX for improving security through micro-segmentation of our network. We have strict security regulations that require us to segregate different subnets, and NSX helps us efficiently manage this.

I value the ability to dynamically configure our network on the fly using VMware NSX. This flexibility is a huge advantage because it allows us to avoid static configurations that come with traditional hardware setups. 

Additionally, the micro-segmentation feature is beneficial for adhering to strict security regulations from our security department.

NSX is used with vCloud Director to provide networking as a service or extend the capabilities of the load balancer, VPN, firewall, etc. There are two types of NSX. VMware's latest version is a product called NSX-T. It's a universal solution used across the VMware lineup and products like Hyper-V or the public cloud. You can use it on-prem or public cloud as well. NSX is used by the operations team, architects, and engineers. There are maybe 20 to 30 people using it.

NSX extends Layer-2 scalability on Layer 3, covering the vRO and extending the capability on Layer 3 by decapsulating using a new mechanism. NSX-V was designed to use with VMware products and Success 360, providing more flexibility toward different levels of cloud, containers, and components. NSX-T gives you the ability to stretch your network across different view locations. If you have multiple sites, you can connect them using NSX-T.

Usually, when we are deployed for a period of two months, we have to program VMware NSX from the beginning and set up all the security measures.

VMware NSX has helped by saving time. A task that would typically take a man several days can now be done in one or two days.

We use VMware NSX for our cloud and public cloud environments in different data centers. It supports our network virtualization and data center operations.

VMware NSX has greatly improved our network manageability and security. Since deployment, we've done various upgrades and health checks without facing major issues. It has also contributed to efficiently building enterprise and public cloud environments.

The micro-segmentation and the ability to create policy rules are valuable.

There's generally quite a lack of specialists in this space. One of the challenges as a reseller is that I need technical people to go and offer in-depth conversations about the products. We would engage someone to do that, or we would look for some engineering resources to be able to do the implementation. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of those. There is a massive skill shortage.

It's a good product, but the way that it has got so many multiple levels that need to be purchased makes it expensive and cumbersome. They seem to value shareholders more than customers, but most corporations seem to do that anyway.

The Environment was an active-active Tier-0 multi-site deployment (primary/secondary).

It contained compute and management clusters, and a small number of transport ESXi nodes (between five and six) v6.7u2, vCenter 6.7u2, AD.

The primary use case was to implement micro-segmentation and route production workloads through NSX-T via BGP. Our customer needed assurances that BGP routing within NSX-T would be efficient.

We implemented a very simple architecture and setup site with one NSX Manager as the primary source. This was a financial customer, thus security was the main item.

We had to explain to the customer that NSX-T deployment and micro-segmentation were two different projects explicitly.

NSX-T has allowed us to implement micro-segmentation in the customer's environment seamlessly (zero-trust). We have also looked at deploying Tufin or Gardicore, ReSTNSX as alternative tools. The Environment was an active-active Tier-0 multi-site deployment

The organization was able to begin scaling out its production workloads and clusters.

From a security standpoint, the customer was able to better secure critical workloads while routing L2/L3 worked normally, giving them more confidence that they would be ready for any potential security incident mitigation or outage (DR).

We use the solution to establish a connection between our two sites using the same IPs. This is our primary use case.

Segmentation, specifically micro-segmentation, and also for its extended service between sites to keep the same IP address on all sites are valuable features of the solution for our company.

It's what we use the CIS Benchmarks for. It's for employing hardening rules and keeping them up to date when things happen on our systems. So it's really configurations and stuff that harden and report back. 

Now, some of the hardening we have in our configuration, so there's some overlap there, but actually running the benchmarks and enforcing the benchmarks as security rules, they don't have much built for that. They got nothing for AIX, and Linux is not where the CIS benchmarks are. So they're way behind on partnering.

We had proof of concept at one point before the VMware purchase of SaltStack. And it had some merit, but the reality was it was under-implemented. And the merits were all in Linux. It was a good first stab at it, but it didn't have enough to implement in our environment, and then AIX kind of washed it right out, and they made a statement that they weren't going to support it. So it's been ruled out for us for a number of months.