Requirements for NSX Data Center for vSphere Deployment

In my previous post I shared NSX Data Center For vSphere Overview and  here I will cover the requirements to deploy NSX Data Center for vSphere . I share the hardware and software requirements and other components also .

To deploy NSX Data Center for vSphere we need to fulfill below requirements

• NSX Manager Media
• Compatible version of vCenter and vSphere
• License for NSX Data Center for vSphere and vSphere Enterprise License
• vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)
• vCenter Login credentials & Necessary resources to deploy NSX manager as per hardware requirements.
• Static IP address and DNS record for NSX Manager.
• Working Active Directory Domain , DNS , NTP
• NTP server and vCenter, ESXi and NSX manager should use this NTP and all are in sync.

System Requirements

Below are the hardware requirements for NSX Data Center for vSphere appliances.

Hardware Requirements for Appliances
Appliance	Memory	vCPU	Disk Space
NSX Manager	16 GB (24 GB for larger NSX Data Center for vSphere deployments)	4 (8 for larger NSX Data Center for vSphere deployments)	60 GB
NSX Controller	4 GB	4	28 GB
NSX Edge	Compact: 512 MB	Compact: 1	Compact, Large, Quad Large: 1 disk 584MB + 1 disk 512MB
(Distributed logical router is deployed as compact appliance)	Large: 1 GB	Large: 2	XLarge: 1 disk 584MB + 1 disk 2GB + 1 disk 256MB
	Quad Large: 2 GB	Quad Large: 4
	X-Large: 8 GB	X-Large: 6
Guest Introspection	2 GB	2	5 GB (Provisioned space is 6.26 GB)

Network Latency

You should ensure that the network latency between components is at or below the maximum latency described

Components	Maximum latency
NSX Manager and NSX Controller nodes	150 ms RTT
NSX Manager and ESXi hosts	150 ms RTT
NSX Manager and vCenter Server system	150 ms RTT
NSX Manager and NSX Manager in a cross-vCenter NSX environment	150 ms RTT

Ports and Protocols Required by NSX Data Center for vSphere

The following ports must be open for NSX Data Center for vSphere to operate properly.

Note: If you have a cross-vCenter NSX environment and your vCenter Server systems are in Enhanced Linked Mode, each NSX Manager appliance must have the required connectivity to each vCenter Server system in the environment to manage any NSX Manager from any vCenter Server system

Source	Target	Port	Protocol	Purpose	Sensitive	TLS	Authentication
Client PC	NSX Manager	443	TCP	NSX Manager Administrative Interface	No	Yes	PAM Authentication
Client PC	NSX Manager	443	TCP	NSX Manager VIB Access	No	No	PAM Authentication
ESXi Host	vCenter Server	443	TCP	ESXi Host Preparation	No	No
vCenter Server	ESXi Host	443	TCP	ESXi Host Preparation	No	No
ESXi Host	NSX Manager	5671	TCP	RabbitMQ	No	Yes	RabbitMQ User/Password
ESXi Host	NSX Controller	1234	TCP	User World Agent Connection	No	Yes
NSX Controller	NSX Controller	2878, 2888, 3888	TCP	Controller Cluster – State Sync	No	Yes	IPsec
NSX Controller	NSX Controller	7777	TCP	Inter-Controller RPC Port	No	Yes	IPsec
NSX Controller	NSX Controller	30865	TCP	Controller Cluster – State Sync	No	Yes	IPsec
NSX Manager	NSX Controller	443	TCP	Controller to Manager Communication	No	Yes	User/Password
NSX Manager	vCenter Server	443	TCP	vSphere Web Access	No	Yes
NSX Manager	vCenter Server	902	TCP	vSphere Web Access	No	Yes
NSX Manager	ESXi Host	443	TCP	Management and provisioning connection	No	Yes
NSX Manager	ESXi Host	902	TCP	Management and provisioning connection	No	Yes
NSX Manager	DNS Server	53	TCP	DNS client connection	No	No
NSX Manager	DNS Server	53	UDP	DNS client connection	No	No
NSX Manager	Syslog Server	514	TCP	Syslog connection	No	No
NSX Manager	Syslog Server	514	UDP	Syslog connection	No	No
NSX Manager	NTP Time Server	123	TCP	NTP client connection	No	Yes
NSX Manager	NTP Time Server	123	UDP	NTP client connection	No	Yes
vCenter Server	NSX Manager	80	TCP	Host Preparation	No	Yes
REST Client	NSX Manager	443	TCP	NSX Manager REST API	No	Yes	User/Password
VXLAN Tunnel End Point (VTEP)	VXLAN Tunnel End Point (VTEP)	8472 (Before NSX 6.2.3) or 4789 (NSX 6.2.3 and later)	UDP	Transport network encapsulation between VTEPs	No	Yes
ESXi Host	ESXi Host	6999	UDP	ARP on VLAN LIFs	No	Yes
ESXi Host	NSX Manager	8301, 8302	UDP	DVS Sync	No	Yes
NSX Manager	ESXi Host	8301, 8302	UDP	DVS Sync	No	Yes
Guest Introspection VM	NSX Manager	5671	TCP	RabbitMQ	No	Yes	RabbitMQ User/Password
Primary NSX Manager	Secondary NSX Manager	443	TCP	Cross-vCenter NSX Universal Sync Service	No	Yes
Primary NSX Manager	vCenter Server	443	TCP	vSphere API	No	Yes
Secondary NSX Manager	vCenter Server	443	TCP	vSphere API	No	Yes
Primary NSX Manager	NSX Universal Controller Cluster	443	TCP	NSX Controller REST API	No	Yes	User/Password
Secondary NSX Manager	NSX Universal Controller Cluster	443	TCP	NSX Controller REST API	No	Yes	User/Password
ESXi Host	NSX Universal Controller Cluster	1234	TCP	NSX Control Plane Protocol	No	Yes
ESXi Host	Primary NSX Manager	5671	TCP	RabbitMQ	No	Yes	RabbitMQ User/Password
ESXi Host	Secondary NSX Manager	5671	TCP	RabbitMQ	No	Yes	RabbitMQ User/Password

Software’s Required

First you have to check the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices  to know about the compatibility of current and earlier versions of  VMware vSphere components, including ESXi, VMware vCenter Server, and optional VMware products.

Refer release notes of  NSX Data Center for vSphere to understand the version features , known issues and fixes – VMware Docs

For an NSX Manager to participate in a cross-vCenter NSX deployment the following conditions are required:

Component	Version
NSX Manager	6.2 or later
NSX Controller	6.2 or later
vCenter Server	6.0 or later
ESXi	ESXi 6.0 or later
	Host clusters prepared with NSX 6.2 or later VIBs

Client and User Access

The following items are required to manage your NSX Data Center for vSphere environment:

• Forward and reverse name resolution. This is required if you have added ESXi hosts by name to the vSphere inventory, otherwise NSX Manager cannot resolve the IP addresses.
• Permissions to add and power on virtual machines
• Access to the datastore where you store virtual machine files, and the account permissions to copy files to that datastore
• Cookies must be enabled on your Web browser to access the NSX Manageruser interface.
• Port 443 must be open between the NSX Managerand the ESXi host, the vCenter Server, and the NSX Data Center for vSphere appliances to be deployed. This port is required to download the OVF file on the ESXi host for deployment.
• A Web browser that is supported for the version of vSphere Web Clientyou are using. See “Using the vSphere Web Client” in the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation for details.
• For information about using the vSphere Client(HTML5) on vSphere5 with NSX Data Center for vSphere 6.4, Refer vSphere client functionality support

NSX and vSphere Distributed Switches

In an NSX domain, VMware NSX Virtual Switch is the software that operates in server hypervisors to form a software abstraction layer between servers and the physical network.

NSX Virtual Switch is based on vSphere distributed switches (VDSs), which provide uplinks for host connectivity to the top-of-rack (ToR) physical switches. As a best practice, VMware recommends that you plan and prepare your vSphere Distributed Switches before installing NSX Data Center for vSphere.

NSX services are not supported on vSphere Standard Switch. VM workloads must be connected to vSphere Distributed Switches to use NSX services and features.

A single host can be attached to multiple VDSs. A single VDS can span multiple hosts across multiple clusters. For each host cluster that will participate in NSX, all hosts within the cluster must be attached to a common VDS.