Most organisations are running NSX for vSphere (NSX-v) which brought software defined networking to VMware virtualisation technology (vSphere). With the introduction of NSX-T in 2016, VMware fully focused on bringing the public cloud and the cloud-native experience to the data center by supporting a variety of heterogeneous endpoints such as VMs, containers, and bare metal servers.

NSX-T is the next generation and security with a complete L2-L7 suite of services, delivering switching, routing, firewalling, analytics, and load balancing entirely in software. The platform enables a wide range of use-cases in intrinsic security, networking and security for multi-cloud and modern apps, and network automation. The past few releases delivered many new networking and security innovations on NSX-T, prominent among these are the ultimate crown jewels of the platform – NSX Intelligence, Federation and NSX Distributed IDS/IPS.

For many organisations the migration from NSX-v to NSX-T is top priority because of one or more of the following reasons:

VMware NSX-T, Features and Migration Approach

VMware NSX® Data Center is the network virtualization and security platform that enables the virtual cloud network, a software-defined approach to networking that extends across data centers, clouds, and application frameworks.

Figure - NSX Data Center network virtualization and security platform

KEY FEATURES

VMware NSX Data Center delivers a completely new operational model for networking defined in software, forming the foundation of the software-defined data center (SDDC) and extending to a virtual cloud network. NSX Data Center provides a complete set of logical networking and security capabilities and services, including logical switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing, virtual private network (VPN), quality of service (QoS) and monitoring. Below are key features if NSX-T,

KEY BENEFITS

• Protect applications with micro-segmentation at the workload level and granular security
• Reduce network provisioning time from days to seconds and improve operational efficiency through automation.
• Gain consistent management of networking and security policies independent of physical network topology within and across data centers and native public clouds.
• Obtain detailed application topology visualization, automated security policy recommendations and
• continuous flow monitoring.
• Enable advanced, lateral threat protection on east-west traffic using the built-in, fully distributed threat prevention engine.

Licensing is the same for both NSX types in that it provides you more flexibility and universality. For example, if you have licenses for using NSX for vSphere, and if you intend to deploy NSX-T, you can use the same license obtained for NSX-v. NSX is NSX - there is no distinction from the licensing side, as licensing editions are also the same.

MIGRATION APPROACH

Migration to VMware NSX-T Data Center (NSX-T) is top of mind for customers who are on NSX for vSphere (NSX-V). Broadly speaking, there are two main methods to migrate from NSX for vSphere to NSX-T Data Center: In Parallel Migration and In Place Migration.

HOW HUCO HELPS OUR CUSTOMERS IN THIS JOURNEY

In this migration journey Huco is helping our customers by its experience and successful NSX-v to NSX-T migration services which includes the following phases,

Migration Assessment→ assess your environment for networking prerequisites prior to the migration.

Design and Architecture→ Design a new target network operating model covering multiple cloud and heterogeneous platforms including containers, VM's and bare metals.

Deployment and Migration→Migrate management and workload domains using the migration options available 1. In Parallel Migration 2. In Place Migration

Support and Managed Services→ With Huco's iDOC (Remote Intelligent Digital Operation Center) offering, provide Day 2 operation and adoption support.

Huco is a leading cloud native partner in METNA region and 1st partner EMEA to achieve all the 6 Master Services Competency (MSC) of VMware. Being a leading MSC partner of VMware, Huco has gained vast experience in implementing NSX-v & NSX-T (Containers, cloud and VM's) and acquired knowledge/skills/experience in transitioning to NSX-T smoothly. Huco works closely with the VMware product team to help customers minimise the threat and interruption during their migration.

For more information on how Huco helped customers in transforming and adopting to NSX-T, please reach out to [email protected] and post your inquiry/interest. Our VMware Experts are eager to help you in you journey towards a next generation cloud native network and security solution.