Introduction to VMware NSX - Use Cases and Key Features

-
In this post we'll be discussing about NSX, including it's use cases and key features, which will help us to make informed decisions about our design, deployment, configuration and continued successful operation of NSX.


Automation Use Cases

  • Automating IT: Automation allows for quick, secure and automatic deployment of applications and services
  • Developer Cloud: Automation enables developers to use a unified API for on-demand networking and security services.
  • Multi-tenant Infrastructure: Automation empowers organizations to provision and deliver networking and security services to multiple tenants on a shared infrastructure


Security Use Cases

VMware NSX embeds security functions right in the hypervisor. It delivers micro-segmentation and detailed security to the individual workload, enabling a fundamentally more secure data center. Security policies travel with the workloads, independently of where workloads are in the network topology.
  • Micro-Segmentation: NSX enables specific firewalling and security policy enforcement for every workload in the data center, independent of the network topology and complexity.
  • DMZ Anywhere: NSX enables security and advanced services to be dynamically assigned to workloads, independent of the underlying physical network.
  • Secure End User: Micro-segmentation allows NSX to give each desktop it's own perimeter defense and per-app VPN access form mobile devices, eliminating unauthorized access between adjacent workloads.


Application Continuity Use Cases

  • Disaster Recovery: Completely synchronizes network and security configuration to a recovery site for rapid recovery in the event of disaster.
  • Metro Pooling: Creates a unified, seamless and resilient networking pool and security infrastructure to run your applications.
  • Hybrid Cloud Networking: Moves applications and workloads seamlessly between data centers and public cloud.


Compliance Use Cases

NSX enables a zero-trust security model inside data centers and clouds:
  • Security by Design: Micro-segmentation allows for detailed security down to the VM vNIC
  • Minimized Risk: Security groups allow for building adaptive, application-centric security policies in which VMs will land and be available as soon as they are provisioned.
  • Full Visibility and Context: NSX provides visibility across application infrastructure and end points, enabling the validation of configuration and real-time state against regulatory controls.
  • Third-Party Integration: NSX dynamically responds to threat and runtime circumstances, including context provided from a third-party security partners.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Enables organizations to meet their obligations.



Learn more about VMware NSX here






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anyconnect SSL-Client VPN with Self-signed Certificate on Cisco ASA

-
Image
The Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Solution provides a comprehensive, highly secure enterprise mobility solution. the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Solution continues to lead with next-generation security and encryption, including support for the Suite B set of cryptographic algorithms, and support for IPv6 networks. More importantly, it adapts its tunneling protocol to the most efficient method. In the present scenario, we have to configure Anyconnect SSL remote access VPN for Sales department and Engineering department of a company. Engineering users will have to be provided with access to web server as well as FTP server, while sales users may only have access to the web server.
Read more

Filtering Routes in BGP using Route-maps and Prefix-list

-
Image
Order of preference of attributes in BGP The order of preference varies based on whether the attributes are applied for inbound updates or outbound updates. For inbound updates the order of preference is:     route-map     filter-list     prefix-list, distribute-list For outbound updates the order of preference is:     prefix-list, distribute-list     filter-list     route-map NOTE: The attributes prefix-list and distribute-list are mutually exclusive, and only one command (neighbor distribute-list or neighbor prefix-list) can be applied to each inbound or outbound direction for a particular neighbor. Scenario: We own the AS500 and advertising a network block of 192.0.2.0/24 and 180.179.179.0/16 to two different ISPs.
Read more

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

-
Image
The Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is an Interior Gateway Protocol used to distribute routing information within a single Autonomous System. OSPF is a Link State routing protocol and has following features. Fast convergence VLSM support Scalable to large networks Stub capabilities Authenticaion Efficiency (Sends only hello messages to maintain neighbor relationship) Route tagging capabilities Uses multicast for routing updates. Specifications                              Protocol type            Link-state               Administrative Distance            110                                          Metric            Cost                             Authentication            None, Clear-text, MD5                                Seed metric            20 for all redistributed routes and 1 for BGP routes.      Multicast address used by All             224.0.0.5   Multicast add. used by DR/BDR             225.0.0.6                                            RFC       
Read more

IKEv2 IPsec Site-to-Site VPN configuration on Cisco ASA 8.4(x)

-
Image
Though the crypto IKEv2 proposal command looks similar to the IKEv1 crypto isakmp policy command, there are many differences in how IKEv2 negotiates. Unlike IKEv1, the authentication method and SA lifetime are not negotiable in IKEv2, and they cannot be configured in the IKEv2 proposal. Also the IKEv2 proposal configuration supports specifying multiple options for each transform type and we can configure different pre-shared-key for local and remote authentication. Pseudo-Random Function (PRF) algorithm  is the same as the integrity algorithm, and hence, it is not configured separately. Our goal is to configure site-to-site or l2l IKEv2 IPsec VPN between ASA1 and ASA2 which are running IOS 8.4(2). IP addressing scheme is mentioned in the network diagram.
Read more

IPsec VPN as a Backup for Point-to-Point Link using IP SLA

-
Image
There may be times when you wish to access your remote site even when the point-to-point link (lease line) to that site is down. This is possible if you have also an internet connection to that site. You can configure an IPsec VPN between both the sites. But the problem is that even if you configure IPsec VPN on both the locations, the VPN will never come up when the point-to-point connection goes down. This is because even though that point-to-point connection is down, the interface status of firewall will always remain up due to devices of ISP in between and thus the static route will not let the incoming traffic to match the interesting traffic for IPsec VPN. So the solution to this problem is either to configure dynamic routing protocols or IP SLA. Cisco IP SLA monitor can be used to track the reachability of other location. Here is an example of such scenario using Cisco IP SLA monitor. If you need the gns3 lab for this or have any queries, you can leave your queries and email ID
Read more

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

-
Image
Introduction Border Gateway Protocol is an Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) used for routing between the autonomous systems. It is the protocol which is used to to make core routing decisions on the internet. BGP has two flavours, eBGP and iBGP. eBGP is routing between the autonomous systems and iBGP is routing within an autonomous systems. BGP is a path-vector routing protocol and has following features: Reliable updaes (TCP -based, port 179) Triggered updates only Rich metric Scalable to massive networks   Specifications              Protocol Type                Path-vector                    eBGP AD                20                     iBGP AD                200               Update Mode                Triggered only                     Transport                TCP/179              Authentication                None, md5                            RFC                RFC 4271 Default Timers                       Holddown time          180 seconds              
Read more

Cisco ASA Active/Active Failover Configuration

-
Image
Active/Active failover is only available to security appliances in multiple context mode. In an Active/Active failover configuration, both security appliances can pass network traffic. In Active/Active failover, you divide the security contexts on the security appliance into failover groups. A failover group is simply a logical group of one or more security contexts. You can create a maximum of two failover groups on the security appliance. The admin context is always a member of failover group 1. Any unassigned security contexts are also members of failover group 1 by default. We have already seen the configuration for Active/Standby failover in the previous article. This article focuses on how to configure an Active/Active Failover configuration on ASA Security Appliance. Network Diagram  (Physical Topology)
Read more

Bypassing Proxy Server in Google Chrome

-
Image
There may be times when you might want to use Google Chrome and do not wish to use the proxy settings for which you are bound to use in Internet Explorer because of your company policies. If you try to change proxy settings in Google Chrome, by default it will open the System Internet Properties dialogue box, and most of the times, change in proxy setting options is restricted by domain group policy. So here is an alternate way to remove or disable proxy settings in Google Chrome.
Read more

Cisco ASA Active/Standby Failover Configuration

-
Image
The security appliance supports two failover configurations: Active/Active Failover and Active/Standby Failover. Each failover configuration has its own method to determine and perform failover. With Active/Active Failover, both units can pass network traffic. This lets you configure load balancing on your network. Active/Active Failover is only available on units that run in multiple context mode. With Active/Standby Failover, only one unit passes traffic while the other unit waits in a standby state. If Active unit fails, secondary will take over and starts forwarding the traffic. When Secondary becomes active, it will also change it's interface IP address and mac address as well.  In Active/Standby configuration, virtually all of the configuration from the active unit is replicated to the secondary unit through a failover cable. This article focuses on how to configure an Active/Standby Failover in ASA Security Appliance. Prerequisites Hardware Requirements The two
Read more