VMware NSX Reviews & Product Details

I have been using VMware NSX for five years primarily for microsegmentation, and I achieve significant advantages such as Zero Trust security. I particularly like the tight integration of VMware NSX with every virtual machine, which enhances its functionality. Furthermore, the ability to monitor traffic effectively is another aspect I appreciate about VMware NSX. These features collectively enhance my network management capabilities and contribute to a more secure and efficient virtual environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I find misconfigurations to be an issue with VMware NSX, which can lead to disruptions or unexpected behavior in the network. Additionally, the initial setup was not easy, posing challenges and requiring a steep learning curve for my team. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I like the most about VMware NSX is the ability to integrate with a wide range of third-party solutions, as well as its support for multi-cloud scenarios, make it an adaptable tool for enterprises seeking to establish a unified, secure, and scalable network infrastructure. Another key advantage of NSX is its central management console, which reduces the difficulty of administering such a distributed environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It would be the expense; the NSX can be a major investment, particularly for smaller enterprises or those with limited resources. The cost of license, hardware requirements, and ongoing maintenance can quickly add up, especially when deploying across several sites or cloud environments. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Definitely the features it offers around security - distributed firewall, IPS/IDS in a distributed form are making the job with virtualized environments. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The Load Balancer functionality and the changes around native and LB are quite distrucive as the vision is chaning every few weeks. That makes it a real pain from planning perspective, especially if your environmen heavility depends on this feature or it's a main reason why you buy NSX.

Additionally the DFW as an addon after broadcom acqusition is a joke! It should be part of the core license! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NSX allows for seamless integration of L2, L3 and dynamic routing into Cloud Director allowing a for a compelling platfrom for Cloud Services for traditional VM workloads all the way through to container based applications. It allows the deprecation of traditional VLAN network and allows for high availability of cross availability zone networking allowing business to have buisness continuity. The ability to be able to leverage north south firewall and also distributed firewalling improves the security of cloud services. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Unfortunately the new VMware by Broadcom billing models makes NSX no financially viable in the market compared to traditional virtual firewall products such as Fortigate and Palo Alto due to the licensing requirements for DFW, North South Firewall and Load balancing of NSX ALB Service Engines. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The micro-segmentation capabilities are particularly impressive, allowing for detailed control over security policies down to the individual VM level. This has significantly enhanced our security posture.

NSX scales well with our growing infrastructure needs. Whether adding new hosts or deploying complex networking topologies, NSX handles the load with minimal issues.

Seamless integration with other VMware products like vSphere and vCenter is a big plus. It makes managing our virtual environment more unified and streamlined. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The initial setup and configuration can be quite complex, requiring a steep learning curve. Even with a strong background in networking, it took our team some time to get fully comfortable with all the features.

NSX is on the pricier side, and while it delivers value, smaller organizations might find it hard to justify the investment.

VMware’s support is generally good, but there have been instances where resolution times were slower than expected, especially for more complex issues.

VMware's customer support is generally responsive and knowledgeable, but the resolution times for complex issues can sometimes be slower than expected, frustrating during critical situations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

High performance software defined networking with microsegmentation

Distributed- and Gatewayfirewall technology

Great compatibility with virtual desktop solutions like VMware Horizon

Easy possibility to integrate with AVI loadbalancer

Great software upgrade procedure (Upgrade coordinator)

Easy to operate

Rich third party vendor support and easy integration with other solutions like Data processing units Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Complexity of initial installation / implementation

The quality and time of VMware support could be improved.

Some features or troubleshooting steps require API access skils as the GUI lacks some aspects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Things i really like about VMware NSX is how versatile is it to use and they have truly set the standard for networking and security. The ability to decoy from physical hardware to software.

Also how easy it is to integrate with there existing products, creating that ecosystem to work on.

Automation features saves time with minimal human errors makes this product great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Can be challenging to setup initially.

Also to integrate with existing systems and using any other thord party softwares for it can be difficult to pursue.

It needs alot funds to run this robust program and also resources in timely manner. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's quite simpless to deploy and had almost all the functionality we requited to setup a multi-site architecture across two DC with proper documentation on refrence architectures and dployments Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nothing really. Because when compared to other solutions out there, its more production ready and has more functionalities. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Upsides:

The main reason we use the NSX product on our environments is to make life easier with virtual networking in a SDDC. The ease of use helps our thousands of customers to create their own SDDC with all of their enterprise applications. Virtual networking creates an unprecedented number of use-cases that can be used. Firewalling, VPN's, micro-segmentation, NIC-firewalling, gateway firewalling, BGP and lots more.

There is a rich third party integration possibility within the NSX product like Fortigate-VM! Last but not least, the implementation for NSX is relatively easy. You only need to install 3 appliances and you are good to go.

This is the reason it is used all the time in all our production environments. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Downsides:

How easily NSX provides functionality to end-customers and/or cloud providers is something different from the configuration that needs to be done to use the product after installation. Next to this, I think the legion of different products such as AVI loadbalancing, IDS/IPS etc. could have a better integration into the main product. Most of these require additional appliances and or software to be used.

Furthermore, the API is vast and complete. However, the GUI seems to be behind in that part since not all API equivalent calls can be done with the GUI, which means that users that do not fully understand API calls the learning curve might be a bit harder in comparison with others that do understand these. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NSX is very powerfull in microsegmentation or firewalling between VMs. There is no other product available that is able to perform the same level of firewalling within the vSphere environment or SDDC. Once setup the NSX network virtualization alows easy, fully automated deployment of new virtual networks within the environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

NSX lacks internal monitoring tooling in comparison to a classical firewall. NSX relies on external tooling for this.

Currently it is not possible to purchase the NSX firewall (vDefend) as an option to VMware Foundation, it's only available as option to VCF Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.