The uplink profile is a template that defines how an N-VDS or a vDS that exists in each transport node (either host or Edge VM) connects to the physical network. Starting with VCF version 4.0, vDS is used to back the host Overlay and VLAN transport zones for both the Mgmt and VI WLDs. The uplink profile specifies:

• Uplinks to be used by the transport node
• Teaming policy that is applied to those uplinks
• VLAN used for the profile
• MTU applied to the traffic

The following table shows the different uplink profiles that are used for the VCF on VxRail SDDC solution. These profiles can be either the single VxRail vDS or the second dedicated NSX vDS when only two uplinks are used.

Table 10.  VxRail or NSX vDS with two uplinks - Mgmt and VI WLD uplink profiles

The following table shows the uplink profiles that are created when a dedicated NSX vDS is deployed with four uplinks:

Table 11.  Second vDS with four uplinks—Mgmt and VI WLD uplink profiles

Note: The Edge uplink profiles also include a Named Teaming policy that uses failover order for the uplink traffic. Thus, north-south traffic can be pinned to each physical network router.

Each time a new VxRail cluster is added to an NSX VI WLD, a new host uplink profile is created to define the VLAN used for the host TEPs. The VLAN can be the same or different for each of the VxRail clusters.

For a single VxRail cluster VI WLD, two uplink profiles are required to complete the overall deployment of an NSX WLD, including the dynamic routing configuration. The host uplink profile is autogenerated when the VxRail cluster is added to the VI WLD. The Edge uplink profile is created on Day 2 when you add an Edge cluster. The profile can be created from SDDC Managers using the Edge cluster automation feature.