A transport node as described earlier is either a host or an edge VM. The host transport uses a vDS for connectivity, whereas edge transport node uses the N-VDS. Each transport node can be added to one or more transport zones. Transport node profiles are used for host transport nodes. They contain the following information about the transport node that is vDS backed:

• Name
• Transport Zones for vDS participation – Overlay and VLAN TZ
• Uplink Profile
• IP Assignment type for the TEPs – DHCP or IP Pool
• Physical NIC Mapping – vmnics to uplinks.

The underlying vDS will determine what pNICS are mapped in the transport node profile, if only a single vDS design then the pNIC mapping is fixed to vmnic0/vmnic1. If a second vDS is used for NSX, the pNICs are selectable and either two or four uplinks can be mapped.

The following table shows the settings that are applied to the Mgmt WLD and VI WLD with a single VxRail vDS or the second NSX vDS with only two uplinks.

Table 10.           NSX-T transport node profiles with two uplinks

During the deployment of the Mgmt WLD by Cloud Builder, the following tasks are performed:

• A transport profile is created with the settings in the preceding table. When the management VxRail cluster is added to the NSX-T Mgmt WLD, the transport node profile is applied to the nodes in the cluster.
• The nodes are added to the transport zones,
• The TEPs are assigned an IP so that the hosts can communicate over the overlay network.

The following figure shows the Mgmt WLD node connectivity with single VxRail vDS with two uplinks that are used for the TEP traffic. The vmkernel interfaces that are used for the TEP traffic will get their IPs assigned from a DHCP server using the Host overlay VLAN defined before the deployment.

Figure 24.          Mgmt WLD transport node – single VxRail vDS (only two uplinks)

Note: Figure 24 shows the AVN networks which are only deployed if AVN is enabled during the cloud builder deployment.

The NSX-T VI WLD transport zone design is very similar to the Mgmt WLD. The two main differences are:

• No VLAN Transport Zone is added to the Transport Node profile during deployment.
• Additional VLAN transport zones can be added for the VI WLD nodes post deployment.

If NSX-T is deployed using a second vDS, either two or four uplinks can be used and the pNICs are selectable. The following table shows the transport node profile configuration with four uplinks.

Table 11.           NSX-T transport node profiles with four uplinks

Figure 25 shows a VI WLD node connectivity with a second NSX vDS with two uplinks that are used for the TEP traffic. The vmkernel interfaces that are used for the TEP traffic will get their IPs assigned from a DHCP server using the Host overlay VLAN defined before the deployment.

Figure 25.          VI WLD transport node – Second NSX vDS (can be two or four uplinks)