vCloud Director networking performance can benefit from having NSX Edge Gateways placed in specially-configured edge clusters, designed to host Edge Gateways that provide connectivity between physical (VLAN) and virtual (VXLAN) networks. By default, organization VDC Edge Gateways are placed in the organization VDC's System resource pool. This arrangement makes it difficult to create a VDC that provides the optimal environment for both vApp workloads and the Edge Gateways that connect those workloads to external networks.

Beginning with vCloud Director 9.0, an administrator can force organization VDC Edge Gateways to be deployed in a specific resource pool. This feature enables you to create vSphere clusters that are optimally configured for hosting NSX edges that have VLAN uplinks, then use vCloud Director metadata to indicate that the system should place the edges in resource pools backed by those clusters.

1. Create an Edge cluster in vCenter Server. For configuration details, see the material on NSX Edge Clusters in the vCloud Architecture Toolkit.
2. Use the Managed Object Browser to discover the name and Managed Object ID of the resource pool. You will need the name to attach the resource pool to the Provider VDC you create in Step 3, and you will need the Managed Object ID for the metadata you create in Step 4.
3. Create a Provider VDC, then attach another resource pool to it, specifying the name of the resource pool backed by the Edge Cluster you created in Step 1.
4. Use the Metadata tab of the Provider VDC (or use a vCloud API metadata request) to attach the following metadata key=value pair to the Provider VDC specifying the resource pool's Managed Object ID as the value:

With this metadata in place, new Edge Gateways will always be created in that resource pool, and no other vApps will be placed there. Edge Gateways that were present in the organization VDC before the resource pool was added can be redeployed to place them in the resource pool.