Will NSX run in nexted ESXi hypervisors for lab purposes

[fpbaker]

The VCIX-NV blueprint seems to say that you can build a small NSX lab with A box that can run ESXi 5.5 which implies nested ESXi hosts, BUT the NSX POC document says that nested ESXi is not supported. I dont want to start a 60 day 'shot clock' only to find I need more physical servers.

Thanks in advance

[smitmartijn]

Luckily "not supported" is not the same as "doesn't work" - Nested ESXi for a NSX lab will work fine. I have a pretty large NSX lab running in nested ESXi myself. No real "gotchas" - just follow a nested ESXi guide and deploy NSX on top.

[fpbaker]

Great thanks much, by the by if you run the lab in 1 machine, how much RAM does it have?

[smitmartijn]

It kind of depends on what kind of lab you want to build. One Manager, one or three controller(s), how many edges? Mine is rather large and is using up to 74GB, but I suppose you could do with less. Think of what you want to deploy and use the requirements to make a memory/cpu/disk requirement: http://pubs.vmware.com/NSX-61/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.nsx.install.doc%2FGUID-311BBB9F-32CC-463...