VMware NSX is the network virtualization and security platform that enables VMware’s cloud networking solution with a software-defined approach to networking that extends across data centers, clouds, and application frameworks. With NSX, networking and security are brought closer to the application wherever it is running, from virtual machines (VMs) to containers to physical servers. Like the operational model of VMs, networks can be provisioned and managed independent of underlying hardware. NSX reproduces the entire network model in software, enabling any network topology—from simple to complex multitier networks—to be created and provisioned in seconds. Users can create multiple virtual networks with diverse requirements, leveraging a combination of the services offered through NSX or from a broad ecosystem of third-party integrations, ranging from next-generation firewalls to performance management solutions, to build inherently more agile and secure environments. These services can then be extended to various endpoints within and across clouds.

VMware NSX delivers a new operational model for networking defined in software, forming the foundation of the software-defined data center (SDDC) and extending to a cloud network. Data center operators can achieve levels of agility, security, and economics that were previously unreachable when the data center network was tied solely to physical hardware components. NSX provides a complete set of logical networking and security capabilities and services. These include logical switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing, virtual private network (VPN), quality of service (QoS), and monitoring. These services are provisioned in virtual networks through any cloud management platform leveraging NSX APIs. Virtual networks are deployed nondisruptively over any existing networking hardware and can extend across data centers, public and private clouds, container platforms, and physical servers.

The main use cases of VMware NSX are as follows:

• Security
  NSX makes operationalizing Zero Trust security for applications attainable and efficient in private and public cloud environments. Whether the goal is to lock down critical applications, create a logical demilitarized zone (DMZ) in software, or reduce the attack surface of a virtual desktop environment, NSX enables microsegmentation to define and enforce network security policy at the individual workload level.
• Multicloud networking
  NSX delivers a network virtualization solution that brings networking and security consistently across heterogeneous sites to streamline multicloud operations. As a result, NSX enables multicloud use cases ranging from seamless data center extension to multi–data-center pooling to rapid workload mobility.
• Automation
  By virtualizing networking and security services, NSX enables faster provisioning and deployment of full-stack applications by removing the bottleneck of manually managed networking and security services and policies. NSX natively integrates with cloud management platforms and other automation tools, such as VMware Aria Automation, Terraform, Ansible and more, to empower developers and IT teams to provision, deploy, and manage applications at the speed that business demands.
• Networking and security for cloud-native applications
  NSX provides integrated, full-stack networking and security for containerized applications and microservices, delivering granular policy on a per-container basis as new applications are developed. This enables native container-to-container L3 networking, microsegmentation for microservices, and end-to-end visibility of networking and security policy across traditional and new applications.

To learn more about NSX architecture in the context of VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail, see the VMware Cloud Foundation on VxRail Architecture Guide.