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NSX-T East-West vs. North-South Traffic: Architecture, Design, and Troubleshooting

Paul Bryant

Table of Contents

  1. Overview
  2. East-West vs. North-South: Key Traffic Patterns
  3. NSX-T 4.x Architecture Explained
  4. Traffic Flow Diagrams
  5. Real-World Production Use Cases
  6. Traffic Path Deep Dives
    • East-West Flow
    • North-South Flow
  7. Best Practices for Design and Operations
  8. Troubleshooting Framework for NSX-T Traffic
  9. PowerShell & Python: Traffic Tracing and Automation
  10. Summary: Takeaways for Network Pros

Overview

VMware NSX-T 4.x redefines data center networking. To secure, monitor, and automate at scale, engineers must understand the distinct paths of east-west (internal) and north-south (datacenter ingress/egress) traffic. This article delivers deep technical detail, production-proven advice, and fully-importable network diagrams—plus PowerShell and Python code for live traffic tracing.

East-West vs. North-South: Key Traffic Patterns

Traffic TypeExampleScope
East-WestApp server → DB serverInternal
North-SouthUser’s laptop → Web VMExternal/Internal

NSX-T 4.x Architecture Explained

Traffic Handling:

Traffic Flow Diagrams

East-West Traffic

North-South Traffic

Real-World Production Use Cases

Enterprise Application Segmentation

Multi-Tenant Cloud Services

Hybrid Cloud Extension

Traffic Path Deep Dives

East-West Traffic: Deep Dive

North-South Traffic: Deep Dive

Best Practices for Design and Operations

Troubleshooting Framework for NSX-T Traffic

  1. Symptom Analysis:
    • Flow logs, firewall counters, topology validation.
  2. Logical Validation:
    • Segments/VLANs, Tier-1/Tier-0 status.
  3. DFW & Edge Policy Checks:
    • Rule hit counts, NAT, route tables.
  4. Tool Leverage:
    • GUI: Flow monitoring, DFW logs.
    • CLI: get logical-routers get logical-router <UUID> route-table
  5. Packet Tracing:
    • Traceflow and port mirroring.

PowerShell & Python: Traffic Tracing and Automation

PowerShell Example: East-West Connectivity

$SourceVM = "VM-A"
$DestIP = "10.10.2.20"
Test-Connection -ComputerName $DestIP -Count 4

$uri = "https://nsx-manager/api/v1/logical-switches"
$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Get -Credential $cred -SkipCertificateCheck
$response.results | Select-Object id, display_name

Python Example: North-South Path Trace

import requests
from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth

nsx_manager = "nsx-manager.example.com"
username = "admin"
password = "changeme"

url = f"https://{nsx_manager}/api/v1/logical-routers"
resp = requests.get(url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username, password), verify=False)
for lr in resp.json().get('results', []):
    if lr['router_type'] == 'TIER0':
        print(f"Tier-0: {lr['display_name']}")
        rt_url = f"https://{nsx_manager}/api/v1/logical-routers/{lr['id']}/routing-table"
        rt_resp = requests.get(rt_url, auth=HTTPBasicAuth(username, password), verify=False)
        print(rt_resp.json())

Summary: Takeaways for Network Pros

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of VMwware, my employer or any affiliated organization. Always refer to the official VMWare documentation before production deployment.

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