Dr. Pranay Jha

VMware • Cloud • AI • Enterprise Architecture

FORMERLY
VMware Insight & Cloud Pathshala
What began over a decade ago as a passion for sharing knowledge has evolved into a unified platform for Enterprise AI, VMware, Cloud Architecture, Research, and Modern Infrastructure.

NSX Complete Guide

Everything you need to design, deploy, secure, operate, migrate and master VMware NSX 9 as it ships in VMware Cloud Foundation 9, in one complete, sequential series. All 30 parts are now published. Start at Part 1, or jump to the part you need.

Series complete · 30 of 30 parts published
Core Path: the end-to-end spine
Phase 1 · Foundations
  1. 01NSX 9 overview: what it is and where it fits in VCF 9
  2. 02NSX 9 architecture: management, control & data planes
  3. 03Licensing & editions: VCF vs standalone, the vDefend trap
Phase 2 · Design & Plan
  1. 04Design & planning: transport zones, MTU, TEP pools, EDP
Phase 3 · Deploy
  1. 05NSX Manager deployment & cluster bring-up
  2. 06Host transport node prep: VDS & EDP
  3. 07Edge transport nodes & Edge clusters: VM vs bare-metal
Phase 4 · Logical Networking
  1. 08Segments & logical switching: overlay & VLAN
  2. 09Tier-0 gateways & north-south routing: BGP, ECMP, VRF
  3. 10Tier-1 gateways & east-west routing: DR, SR, the hairpin
  4. 11NAT, DHCP & DNS forwarder services
Phase 5 · Security
  1. 12Distributed Firewall (DFW) fundamentals
  2. 13Security groups, tags & dynamic membership
  3. 14Gateway Firewall & perimeter policy
  4. 15Distributed IDS/IPS & malware prevention
Phase 6 · Services
  1. 16NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi) integration
  2. 17VPN: IPSec & L2VPN
Phase 7 · Operate & Lifecycle
  1. 18Monitoring & ops: Traceflow, alarms, Operations for Networks
  2. 19Backup, restore & config protection
  3. 20Upgrades & lifecycle (VCF integrated LCM)
Deep Dives: specialized tracks
Phase 8 · Advanced Design
  1. 21Micro-segmentation design & zero trust methodology
  2. 22VPC & multi-tenancy: Projects, Transit Gateways, isolation
  3. 23NSX Federation & multi-site: Global Manager, latency budget
Phase 9 · Platform & Scale
  1. 24NSX for Kubernetes: VKS, the Antrea-NSX Adapter, VPC networking
  2. 25NSX in VCF: SDDC Manager & Fleet Management
  3. 26Performance & sizing: Edge throughput, EDP, DFW scale
Phase 10 · Migrate, Automate & Troubleshoot
  1. 27Migrate to NSX 9: N-VDS to VDS & the Migration Coordinator
  2. 28Automation & API: the Policy API, hierarchical tree, Terraform
  3. 29Troubleshooting connectivity & overlay: GENEVE, MTU
  4. 30Troubleshooting DFW & security policy

Architect’s Toolkit

About the Author

Dr. Pranay Jha is a Cloud and AI Consultant with 18+ years of experience in hybrid cloud, virtualization, and enterprise infrastructure transformation. He specializes in VMware technologies, multi-cloud strategy, and Generative AI solutions. He holds a PhD in Computer Applications with research focused on Cloud and AI, has published multiple research papers, and has been a VMware vExpert since 2016 and a VMUG Community Leader.

NSX 9 Series