How to create a Transport Node in NSX-T

In my previous blog posts, I have explained all the prerequisites to configure the fabric node as a Transport Node. Once the farbic node is configured as a transport node, it hosts a local control plane daemons and forwarding engines. The control plane is split into two parts in NSX-T, the central control plane (CCP), which runs on the NSX Controller cluster nodes, and the local control plane (LCP), which runs on the transport nodes, adjacent to the data plane it controls.

What is a Transport Node?

The transport nodes are the hosts running the local control plane daemons and forwarding engines implementing the NSX-T data plane. The transport nodes consists of a NSX-T Virtual Distributed Switch (N-VDS), which is responsible for switching packets according to the configuration of available network services.

A host can serve as a transport node if it contains at least one NSX managed virtual distributed switch (NVDS, previously known as hostswitch). When you create a host transport node and then add the node to a transport zone, NSX-T installs an N-VDS on the host. For each transport zone that the host belongs to, a separate N-VDS is installed. The N-VDS is used for attaching VMs to NSX-T logical switches and for creating NSX-T logical router uplinks and downlinks.

A Transport Node is capable of participating in an NSX-T overlay or NSX-T VLAN networking. For a KVM host, you can preconfigure the N-VDS, or you can have NSX Manager perform the configuration. For an ESXi host, NSX Manager always configures the N-VDS.

What is a Transport Zone?

Transport Zone is a collection of transport nodes that defines the maximum span for logical switches. A transport zone represents a set of similarly provisioned hypervisors and the logical switches that connect VMs on those hypervisors.

Prerequisites to configure Fabric Node as Transport Node:

To configure a fabric node as a Transport node, you must have the configured the following:

Transport Zones:
- How to create Transport Zones in NSX-T?
N-VDS:
- What is N-VDS or hostSwitch in NSX-T?
Uplink Profile:
- What is Uplink Profile and how to Create in NSX-T?
IP Pool:
- Create an IP pools for TEP in NSX-T

Once you have all the above mentioned prerequisites configured, you can configure the Fabric Node as Transport Node.

How to configure ESXi host as Transport Node?

To configure a fabric node as a transport node, log in to the NSX Manager with the admin credentials.

Click Fabric >Nodes > Transport Nodes

**01: Fabric > Nodes > Transport Nodes**

On the Add Transport Node, click General tab and enter the following details:
- Name : Enter the Transport Node name
- Node : From the Node drop-down menu select the Fabric Node
- Transport Zones : Select the Transport Zones (Overlay based Transport Zones for Hypervisors, Overlay & VLAN based Transport Zones for Edge nodes)
Click on N-VDS tab

On the N-VDS tab, enter the following details:
- N-VDS Name: Select the N-VDS associated with the Transport Zone
- Uplink Profile: Select the uplink profile from the drop-down menu
- IP Assignment: Use DHCP | Use IP Pool | Use Static IP List
  - IP Pool: When USE IP POOL is selected from IP Assignment, the IP Pool option will be shown in GUI, Select the IP Pool from the list.
- Physical NICs: Select Physical NICs to associate it to the N-VDS. The Physical NICs would be uplinks to N-VDS
Click SAVE

During the intial configuration of the Transport Node, the Tunnel Status will be shown as Down. Once the VMs running on the Transport Nodes Powered ON and are connected to Logical Switches, the tunnels will be eastablished between the Transport Nodes and will be Up.

How to configure KVM host as Transport Node?

To confiugre the KVM hosts as a Transport Node, on the Add Transport Node, click General tab and enter the following details:
- Name : Enter the Transport Node name for hosts
- Node : From the Node drop-down menu select the Fabric Node
- Transport Zones : Select the Transport Zones (Overlay based Transport Zones for Hypervisors, Overlay & VLAN based Transport Zones for Edge nodes)
Click on N-VDS tab

On the N-VDS tab, enter the following details:
- N-VDS Name: Select the N-VDS associated with the Transport Zone
- Uplink Profile: Select the uplink profile from the drop-down menu
- IP Assignment: Use DHCP | Use IP Pool | Use Static IP List
  - IP Pool: When USE IP POOL is selected from IP Assignment, the IP Pool option will be shown in GUI, Select the IP Pool from the list.
- Physical NICs: Select Physical NICs to associate it to the N-VDS. The Physical NICs would be uplinks to N-VDS
Click SAVE

How to configure Edge node as Transport Node?

To confiugre the edge node as a Transport Node, on the Add Transport Node, click General tab and enter the following details:
- Name : Enter the Transport Node name for edge
- Node : From the Node drop-down menu select the Fabric Node
- Transport Zones : Select the Transport Zones (Overlay based Transport Zones for Hypervisors, Overlay & VLAN based Transport Zones for Edge nodes). The NSX-T Edges can be part of multiple Transport Zones.
Click on N-VDS tab

On the N-VDS tab, enter the following details:
- N-VDS Name: Select the N-VDS associated with the Transport Zone
- Uplink Profile: Select the uplink profile from the drop-down menu
- IP Assignment: Use DHCP | Use IP Pool | Use Static IP List
  - IP Pool: When USE IP POOL is selected from IP Assignment, the IP Pool option will be shown in GUI, Select the IP Pool from the list.
- Physical NICs: Select Physical NICs to associate it to the N-VDS. The Physical NICs would be uplinks to N-VDS
Click on +ADD N-VDS to add a second N-VDS hostswitch

In the New Node Switch section,
- Edge Switch Name: VLAN-TZ [To create a VLAN-based HostSwitch]
- Uplink Profile: Select a Uplink Profile
- Virtual NICS
Click SAVE