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nkv
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

How VMware NSX and Cisco Nexus 5000/7000 are integrated

Hello Experts,

I am supporting a VMware envornment where VMware NSX is configured and the segment ID is 5000-8000. On the physical network side we have Cisco Nexus 5000/7000 are configured.

I need help on to understand how the NSX which has VXLAN 5000-8000 created communicates between the 3 ESXi hosts because the VXLAN if I am not wrong are not created on the Cisco Switches end. So how does Cisco Switch is able to handle this traffic flow between the ESXi hosts?

For the traffic to go between 2 ESXi host it has go to via Network switches, right??

Any configuration needed on Cisco switches so that they support VMware NSX traffic?

Please guide. Quick response appreciated.

3 Replies
lhoffer
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

The vSphere hosts in the environment handle encapsulation/decapsulation of the VXLAN so your Nexus switches don't need to handle them any differently than other IP traffic.  The only potential change needed is that your Nexus switches will need at least a 1600 byte MTU to handle the encapsulation overhead.

ahandoo
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Encap and De-cap is not been done by the Nexus, so there is no vxlan config needed on Nexus.

In NSX, encap and Decap will be done at the host level (By the vtep created on the host).

You just need to configure jumbo mtu on north-bound switches.

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