Family Matters: Introducing the VMware NSX Portfolio

The new VMware NSX portfolio enables organizations to connect, secure and operate an edge-to-edge architecture and delivers networking and security services to applications and data wherever they reside.

This week at Dell Technologies World, Pat Gelsinger, VMware CEO, announced the new VMware NSX portfolio as part of the Virtual Cloud Network unveiling. The NSX networking and security portfolio provides consistent connectivity, integrated security, and the inherent automation to operate an end-to-end architecture that delivers applications and services everywhere. This innovative approach changes the way customers design and deliver services across their enterprises, and the NSX portfolio is the foundation upon which to build the Virtual Cloud Network. Leveraging the benefits of the cloud for the enterprise network is a fundamental shift from the past, where networking and security has relied on hardware-based appliances and features with limited automation abilities.

To support virtual cloud networking, organizations require a robust portfolio. Supporting our customers’ needs around any infrastructure, any cloud, any transport, any application, any platform, any device, we have been thinking about how we architect network elements that sit on top of those foundations. NSX has become a family brand to do just that from data center to cloud to branch and the edge.

The NSX portfolio is made up of “siblings” and some very close “cousins” to support the following needs from the data center to cloud to branch and edge –

Data Center Networking (Network Virtualization and SDN)
Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN)
Network and Application Security
Application, Data and Network Mobility
Insights & Visibility
Telco/NFV

In the last year, we’ve shared many customer success stories (videos too!), received industry validations, and published reference architectures and design documents to support quite a few VMware networking and security product announcements (VMworld 2017 Networking and Security session) and releases (blogs NSX-T Data Center 2.1 & Pivotal, NSX-T Data Center 2.0, NSX Data Center Jan 2017 updates, NSX and AWS, NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud). However, the VMware networking and security transformative effect for our customers did not begin in 2017. The networking and security impact began in 2009 with vSphere 4.0 and the vSphere Distributed Switch.

Members of the NSX portfolio

NSX has become a family brand, continuing to focus on apps and data like we have in the data center and keeping them top of mind as organizations’ networking and security needs extend out to the edge. The value of the VMware NSX portfolio lies in delivering a common operating environment to connect, better secure and operate a Virtual Cloud Network. The portfolio includes new and enhanced capabilities for data center, branch, cloud and telco environments. The NSX portfolio is made up of the following family members:

“Siblings”

Industry-leading Network Virtualization: NSX Data Center, the best end-to-end consistent platform for data center networking.
Best in class SD-WAN for branch/cloud connectivity: NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud driving some of the biggest transformations in networking today – click to read more!
Extending the Data Center network into the Public Cloud, NSX Cloud provides consistent networking and security for applications running in multiple private and public clouds, via a single management console and common API. Micro-segmentation security policy is defined once and applied to application workloads running anywhere – in cloud virtual networks, regions, availability zones – and across multiple clouds.
Delivering application and network hybridity and mobility: NSX Hybrid Connect (The SaaS-based offering will still be available under the VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension/HCX brand from VMware Cloud Provider Partners like IBM Cloud. )
VMware AppDefense builds on this foundation by providing application-centric security based on the intent and behavior of each application. By understanding the purpose and behavior of the application, securing the application changes from chasing bad to enforcing good. This provides a new level of application protection and automation for cloud workloads.

Adjacent to the NSX portfolio is management and automation tools.

“Close Cousins”

Powerful Network Insights and Discovery: Network Insight and vRealize Network Insight
Automation: vRealize Automation

Click below to read more on how NSX Data Center from the NSX Family is integrated with the following VMware offerings:

Can you imagine a network built for today and ready for tomorrow?

Organizations are embarking on a digital transformation, and with those efforts comes a new level of networking complexity as organizations move from centralized data centers to hyper-distributed centers of applications and data at the edge. To address this challenge, the network must evolve to deliver an everything-to-everything connected architecture across private data centers, public clouds, telecommunications networks, branches, and mobile endpoints, as well as deliver multi-cloud networking, security, and management capabilities that provide a common operating model from the data center to the cloud to the edge. Virtual cloud networking is the category of next-generation networking service consumption technology increasingly being adopted across IT to provide the digital fabric that helps unify a hyper-distributed world. Customers choose NSX because it delivers network and security services closest to the application. With the broader NSX family, this does not change.