NSX-T Flashcards
What is a virtual switch?
a piece of software that emulates a physical Layer 2 networking device; allows to interconnect virtual machines in the same fashion as physical devices
How does a virtual switch provide physical network connectivity?
by mapping uplink ports to the physical network interface cards (NICs) of the host
What does it mean that VMware vSphere implements a single-tier virtual switch network topology?
there is no way to directly interconnect multiple virtual switches
What are the two virtual switches supported by vSphere?
- vSphere Standard Switch (VSS)
- vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)
What is VSS?
localized, resides within a single host
What is vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)?
more robust capabilities that span across multiple hypervisor hosts
How does VSS implement data plane and management plane?
- contains both management and data planes in a single package
- must configure and maintain each vSS instance individually
What defines how virtual machine connections are made through the vSS to the physical network?
a port group
What if a port group has no physical NICs configured?
virtual machines can only communicate with each other but do not have connectivity to the external network
How does VDS behave?
like a single switch across all associated hypervisor hosts in a data center
How does VDS implement data plane and management plane?
- has separate management and data planes
- vCenter provides the management-plane functionality, and the data plane remains local to each hypervisor host via a host proxy switch that is associated to the vDS
In which environments is VDS most useful?
environments that use advanced features like vMotion because a virtual machine is able to access its assigned distributed port group on each hypervisor host associated to the VDS
What are the supported NIC load balancing mechanisms?
- Route Based on Originating Virtual Port
- Route Based on IP Hash
- Route Based on Physical NIC Load
How does Route Based on Originating Virtual Port load balancing mechanism work?
- selects an uplink based on the virtual machine port ID
- no specific upstream switch configurations needed
- virtual guest throughput is limited to the speed of the selected uplink
How does Route Based on IP Hash load balancing mechanism work?
- selects an uplink based on the source and destination IP address of each packet
- requires the physical switches to be configured with active or passive Etherchannel
- virtual guest flows are load-shared across all associated uplinks
How does Route Based on Physical NIC Load load balancing mechanism work?
- starts using the default route based on originating virtual port
- moves to a virtual port when an uplink port reaches 75% utilization over a 30 sec period
- no specific upstream switch configurations needed
- requires vSphere Enterprise Plus
What is the defaul load balancing mechanism?
Route Based on Originating Virtual Port
What are the different vNICs that vSphere support?
- E1000 and E1000E
- VMXNET3
Describe E1000 and E1000E
- virtual Ethernet adapters that emulate Intel 82545EM or 82574 network adapters
- require additional CPU cycles to process all guest virtual-machine network traffic
Describe VMXNET3
- a para-virtualized device created by VMware
- no emulated hardware - optimized for performance
- functions like a 10G NIC
How does Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) work?
- enables a device, such as a network adapter, to appear as multiple independent physical devices to the hypervisor or the guest virtual machine’s operating system
- exchanges data directly with the physical adapter, bypassing the VMkernel
Which environment does Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) fit the best?
workloads with very high packet rates or low latency requirements
What are the compatibility constraints of Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)?
not compatible with several vSphere virtualization features such as vMotion, HA, and DRS
What are the methods of using VLAN tagging in vSphere?
- external switch tagging (EST)
- virtual switch tagging (VST)
- virtual guest tagging (VGT)
Describe External Switch Tagging (EST)
- the physical switches are responsible for VLAN tagging
- there are no VLAN tags configured between the physical and virtual switches
Describe Virtual Switch Tagging (VST)
the most commonly used configuration deployment where both the physical and virtual switches are configured for VLAN tagging
Describe Virtual Guest Tagging (VGT)
- a deployment where the guest virtual machine performs the VLAN tagging
- all VLAN tags pass from the physical switches through the virtual switching layer and arrive unchanged on the guest virtual machine networking stack
What is the role of the vCenter plugin for Panorama?
enable VM monitoring in a vSphere environment
What are the vCenter’s plugin configuration components?
- vCenter
- Notify Group
- Monitoring Definition
What is the purpose of a Notify Group?
determine which device groups should be notified of VM changes
What is the purpose of a Monitoring Definition?
synchronize the VM information from the configured vCenter server to the Notify Group definitions
Which pieces of information does VM vCenter Panorama plugin pull from the VMs running in a vCenter?
- VM name
- guest OS
- annotation
- VLAN ID
- host IP
- user-defined tag
What is the purpose of the the NSX plugin for Panorama?
ensure simple deployment of VM-Series firewalls in the NSX-T environment
What are the two NSX plugin components?
- Service Manager
- Service Definitions
What kind of management refers to workloads moving from a physical host to a different physical host as the environment changes?
Resource management
What kind of group defines how virtual machine connections are made through the vSphere Standard Switch to the physical network?
Port group
Which two vSphere methods help you configure and manage your network resources?
- Virtual Ethernet Adapters (vNIC)
- Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV)
True or false? NSX-T requires both VM-Series firewalls and Panorama to be at version 9.1 or later for North-South implementation.
true
Which component ensures simple deployment of VM-Series firewalls in your NSX-T environment?
Panorama NSX Plugin
