VMware NSX Reviews

I work with two different companies with different large cloud environments. 

This product is a software-defined network, and that allows you to create virtual access networks and managing security to allow for different workloads.

The solution offers a very good software-defined network that allows you to create virtual access networks. It's very helpful at allowing you to manage security to allow for different workloads. 

One of the big improvements between the NSX-V and NSX-T is that in NSX-T you are no longer dependent on V-Center anymore. That was a huge improvement due to the fact that it allows you to take into account new cases, and have better scalability, among other improvements.

There is always room for improvement, in any solution. 

In some cases, this product is very technical. 

Some configuration maximums are limiting to the user, especially when it comes to the deployment of very, very large environments. There are limits to the number of firewall rules, security groups, et cetera. With the number of security groups, you can nest all these limits, however, somehow limiting the use cases may be restrictive for the free design of different use cases.

I've been working with the solution for a while at this point. It's been at least a couple of years.

The scalability capabilities have improved in NSX-T. It is much better than when the NSX-V version was out.

I work with two different clients, both of which are quite sizeable. They have thousands of machines and thousands of security groups.

I didn't work with another solution per se, however, the previous triggered cloud tool that we had was by VMware. It was not really, at least at the very beginning, a tool for a software-defined network, however, there were some elements that allowed you to create customer networks practically on the fly. There were also some other network visualization techniques, which allowed you actually to encapsulate the traffic and to create networks on the fly. You had some security constructs, including tenents constructs, that you can find somehow in the VRA today. The tenant concept is also present in NSX.

Our customers can use the solution for free, however, this comes with restrictions.

We are consultants and integrators. We have a business relationship with VMware.

I am working with both NSX-V and NSX-T. The latest one is actually NSX-T.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at an eight.

We use this product for software-defined networking. We are a solution provider and we build a platform for our clients that includes it.

The most valuable features are the micro-segmentation and integrated security options.

The technical support could use some improvement.

I have been using VMware NSX for a year and a half.

This is a stable product.

NSX-T is scalable, and we have approximately ten people who use it.

The VMware technical support could be better. They're not always reachable and expertise is not widespread. Especially in Austria, there are not a lot of people who are skilled.

I have not worked with another software-defined networking product.

We had some challenges during the installation and setup.

We implemented this product in-house.

The price of this product is too high.

This is a good solution, but there is always room for improvement.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Many of our customers are moving to these kinds of options in order to reduce the number of physical devices and to increase security. I'm an architect of enterprise business and we are an enterprise partner with VMware.

The solution is valuable in that it makes it very easy to protect virtual machines

The product is quite complex and that could be an area where improvements could be made. 

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

This solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. I've implemented it in an organization with 2.000 servers and it's fine. That is my experience. I don't have experience with larger environments. 

We are directly linked to VMware so we haven't needed to contact the technical support. 

We did face some challenges with the initial setup. 

The cost of the solution is a little high, particularly given that most people will not use all the features of the product. If a customer does use all the options, it is a very cheap solution but that is unlikely. For a regular user looking for normal switching, the price feels high. If it's implemented properly you can reduce the cost.

This is a good product and I highly recommend it. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Primary use case is to implement network virtualization for L2/L3 traffic in customers environment and at a minimum implement baseline micro segmentation. each customer has a different business requirement depending on how their existing network is setup --what physical L3 devices are in place and how NSX will need to be configured to function properly.  Most customer using NSX V that we have worked with are running UCS servers or HP

with vsphere 6.7 /7  mid level transport node counts respectively etc.

It has allowed our customers to scale/extend their existing IP subnets and spin up new subnets on-demand for new app/web/DB tiers. Increasing overall VM-to-VM security and policy deployments. It has helped increase operational efficiency from a network management perspective. Many firms have multiple racks of equipment at different data centers that leveraging NSX definitely helps (extending the 'same' IP subnets to different racks in the same data center). For customers who use SRM, there are also great benefits (i.e., not having to manually re-IP DR-side VMs during a failover test).

• micro segmentation features
• VDS
• NSX Transport zone
• vxlan encapsulation
• edge services gateway 
• distributed logical router
• esxi Vtep

By utilizing NSX V solutions from VMware, customers have the tools needed to move their data regardless of the underlying physical network. They can do this in a way that enforces proper security policies and compliance regulations. Even with SDN solutions, customers must protect their business-critical data residing in their virtual infrastructure

NSX V has less security features than NSX T just so you are aware

• NSX Manager console: limit on number of NSX Controllers an architecture can have
• Support for ESXi, KVM, bare-metal servers, Kubernetes, OpenShift, AWS and Azure.
• Integrate NSX Controllers into NSX Manager as a single virtual appliance so controllers no longer need to be deployed independently.
• Directs to vCenter by registering Transport Nodes instead of registering NSX Manager inside of vCenter.
• Use a more modern overlay technology for encapsulation that performs better and is more flexible for the future over older, more traditional VXLAN overlay technology.

I have used it for 3+ years.

Stability factors stemmed from existing ESXi host setup/configuration/performance and compute capacity; did not identify any stability issues with VMware NSX solution itself.

No scalability issues encountered.

Customer Service:

Customer service is 10/10.

Technical Support:

Technical support is 10/10.

No previous solution in place.

Straightforward setup; best practices need to be adhered to.

Implemented in-house in PoC/prod; showed customer PoC demo, then implemented at customer site with positive results.

As a VMware Partner, our ROI is the same as our customers perhaps. NSX helps us leverage our existing infrastructure that is used for training/consulting purposes.

No other options evaluated. VMware is the leader in network virtualization.

Typically CCIE's are the ones tasked with implementing NSX due to their solid network background. Organizations for the most part do not have resources that know VMware as well as they know Cisco. The skills required to be well versed in deploying this technology is rare.

We use this product for micro-segmentation and network function virtualization.

This is the most scalable product of its type.

It is very good for automation and software-defined networking.

I would like to see improvements made to the certification process. As it is now, you have to do the training with VMware itself, and you have to spend a lot of money doing it, which is very discouraging. 

If you compare other certifications especially from the cloud providers, you can get trained from your choice of training providers and not very expensive or learn on your own at your pace, prepare for exams and pass and your certificate will be issued. In contrast, you have to register under VMware to get training done at minimum of $3000 before your certificate is issued to you. The training costs a minimum of $3,000, which is expensive and should be reduced. 

I have been using this product for more than a year.

Outside of the cloud infrastructure, it is the most scalable network product that I have worked with. It is used in a server farm that contains about 2,000 servers.

We have not needed to contact technical support.

We did not use another network function virtualization product prior to this one.

The initial setup is very straightforward. Our deployment took three months, end to end.

We had a consultant to assist us with the deployment.

We have two or three in-house staff who manage and maintain the solution.

The licensing fees are expensive and we pay on a yearly basis. However, we were able to leverage some of the licenses that we had for an affiliated product, ESXi. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

We chose VMware NSX-T because it was the most scalable.

This is a good product and one that I recommend for anybody who does not want to change their existing infrastructure. The problem is that they have to compete with the likes of AWS and cloud providers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution to build our VMware platform.

The most valuable features are security and dynamic routing.

The routing functionality needs to be improved, as there are lots of bugs in the system.

I would like to see automation capabilities in the deployment process.

I have been using VMware NSX since 2016.

I think that there is room to improve from a stability standpoint. There are lots of bugs in this product.

VMware NSX is highly scalable.

The technical support team is good.

I would not say that the initial setup was straightforward. In terms of how easy it was to complete the deployment, I would rate the process a seven out of ten. 

My advice for anybody who is researching VMware NSX is to first have an understanding of network engineering.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a professional services company and we have been evaluating VMware NSX for our clients.

The most valuable features for us at this early stage are the interface and the integration with existing VMware solutions.

The Active Directory network integration and load balancer are good features.

Everybody needs a network to connect to, and VMware doesn't readily provide one. It is reliant on an existing network to connect to, which means that for me, it requires two different teams to manage the SDN.

We have been working with VMware NSX for a couple of months.

It seems like a stable product.

I have not checked on the scalability, although from what I have read, it seems like there might be some concerns. I will know more once I get the opportunity to test it.

At this point, we have a team of just three people who are using it.

We have not had any reason to call technical support at this stage.

Community support seems ok.

We are mainly a Cisco house, but we are trying to use VMware NSX as the next stage of our software-defined networking (SDN) expansion.

I'm not a VMware expert and as a network engineer, I find the setup to be quite complex.

I am currently in the process of comparing this solution to Cisco ACI.

My advice for anybody who is considering this product is to definitely start with a proof of concept. Be sure to understand your business requirements, networking, and security requirements as well.

I am currently evaluating different scenarios on scalability, integration with other products, and the underlay of the solution. While it may be a good product, I think that VMware should buy a network provider that offers the entire end-to-end networking solution.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

Our primary use case is moving from physical to VM infrastructure.

This solution has given us the ability to move from a physical to a virtual server estate with all of the expected VM benefits of decoupling servers from dedicated hardware.

The most valuable feature is the ability to create, develop, and deploy servers in minutes to hours, rather than days.

It could be cheaper!

I have been using VMware NSX for seven years.