Preface

VMware NSX is a network virtualization solution that provides network and security services embedded into the VMware ESXi^? hypervisor. NSX for vSphere implements routing, switching, load balancing and firewalling through software constructs that scale as you scale out your compute infrastructure. NSX also provides the ability to integrate with third party vendors to deliver rich guest and network introspection services via software constructs. By decoupling from the physical hardware, NSX allows greater security, workload mobility, and automation, which form the foundational tenants of an NSX deployment.

At the time of writing of this book, there are three VMware NSX offerings available, which are as follows:

• VMware NSX for vSphere
• VMware NSX-T
• VMware NSX Cloud (https://cloud.vmware.com/nsx-cloud)

This book will cover VMware NSX for vSphere and has been written using version 6.3, but has also incorporated new features from 6.4 in the relevant sections of the book.

The recipes covered throughout this book provide the foundational knowledge required to get started with NSX, but also covers the required content in depth, so that you can make informed design decisions for your VMware NSX implementation.