This Lightning Setup Guide walks through the exact workflow I use to bring an NSX environment from zero to functional in five to ten minutes flat.
Deploy NSX Manager
- ESX host with 4 uplinks connected and in trunk mode.
- Edit switch properties to allow Promiscuous Mac address and forged transmits on vSwitch
- Deploy the NSX Manager OVA using the Medium form factor
- Assign management IP, DNS, NTP
- Power on and log in at
https://nsx-ui - Register vCenter as a Compute Manager
Label the vDS switches correctly
Under the nsx uplinks, which are trunked create the teaming policy for nsx uplinks
Topology view looks this way
Create Transport Zones
Create two zones:
- Overlay-TZ → Overlay
- VLAN-TZ → VLAN
Add two IP pools:
- Add esx-tep-pool
Add edge-tep-pool
Add a esx transport profile , select your cluster → Configure NSX
Choose:
- Overlay-TZ
- VLAN-TZ
Quick Uplink Profile:
- Teaming: Load Balance Source
- TEP IP Pool as esx-tep-pool
- Uplink1 → nsx-uplink03
- Uplink2 → nsx-uplink04
Click Apply and Prepare ESXi Hosts
Add the host to the transport profile
Deploy an Edge Node If you want North‑South routing:
- Add it under Edge Transport Nodes
Choose the compute manager to deploy it to
Give the ip address and add to management portgroup
Choose the transport zone as and select the edge pool we created
- Assign Overlay + VLAN TZs
- tep pool – edge-tep pool
Attach uplinks to your lab network , ie choose the trunked interfaces
Edge nodes are ready
Attach it to edge cluster
Create two VLAN segments for BGP
Example: 2711 as the left uplink to the external router
Build Tier‑0 and Tier‑1 Gateways
- Add uplink interface
Example: 2712 as the right uplink to the external router
Both interfaces are ready
Add bgp neighbours and connect to the segments
Our BGP peer has worked as desired
Advertise the BGP routes in our vyos router
set protocols bgp 65001 address-family ipv4-unicast network 172.16.12.0/24
set protocols bgp 65001 address-family ipv4-unicast network 172.16.11.0/24
Enable route advertisement for T0
Create Tier‑1 & Connect to T0
Enable route advertisement for T1
Done. NSX in 5 Minutes