This article provides information on VMware NSX-T Support for Partner for networking interoperability.

VMware NSX-T

About NSX-T

NSX-T is VMware's multi-hypervisor, multi-cloud Networking & Security platform for workloads running on-premises and the public cloud.
 
The platform is vCenter agnostic but does have some loose vCenter integrations.

For more information, see:

• NSX-T
• NSX-T API

About N-VDS

NSX-T manages the lifecycle of its own virtual switches agnostic of Compute Manager(vCenter). The switch is called the N-VDS. 

• On ESX hypervisors, the N-VDS is NSX's version of vswitch which manifests as an Opaque switch on vSphere.
• On non-ESX hypervisors, the N-VDS is our version of OpenvSwitch (OVS).
• On Bare-Metal and in native public clouds, we install an NSX agent.

How Partners should interact with NSX-T
 
Option A: Partners can integrate with NSX-T directly through NSX-T Rest APIs. For more information, see the NSX-T Manager API Guide.

These APIs are homogenous across multiple hypervisors types: ESX, KVM as well as multiple workload types VM, BM, Container, Cloud.
 
There are also several API plugins to choose from:

• NSX-T Terraform Provider
• NSX-T Ansible
• NSX-T Python

Option B: Partners can continue to use with VIM apis or vSphere SDKs to interact with "select" NSX-T networking features if the workload is running on ESX hypervisors. The following are the only APIs that interacts with Opaque networks.

Note: For partners who interact with VIM APIs or vSphere SDKs, all NSX-T managed VMs have NIC backing as "Opaque Network" hence some code changes may be required as below.

VM related APIs

vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.OpaqueNetworkBackingInfo
vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.OpaqueNetworkBackingInfo is introduced and it extends vim.vm.device.VirtualDevice.BackingInfo. Code changes are needed if you want the VM to connect to an Opaque network or you already have a VM connected to an Opaque network. Most of VM operations are affected such as reconfig, vMotion, clone, etc.
 

Affected API

vim.vm.check.CompatibilityChecker.checkVmConfig

vim.ResourcePool.createVm

vim.Folder.createVm

vim.VirtualMachine.reconfigure

vim.vm.check.ProvisioningChecker.checkRelocate

vim.VirtualMachine.relocate

vim.vm.check.ProvisioningChecker.checkClone

vim.VirtualMachine.clone

vim.ClusterComputeResource.placeVm

vim.vm.check.ProvisioningChecker.checkInstantClone

vim.VirtualMachine.instantClone

Code changes are also needed if you invoke the API which return an object containing vim.vm.device.VirtualDevice.BackingInfo and you want to get some information from it.

Vmknic related APIs

vim.host.VirtualNic.OpaqueNetworkSpec
vim.host.VirtualNic.OpaqueNetworkSpec is introduced as a property of vim.host.VirtualNic. code changes are needed if you want to connect a vmknic to an Opaque network.
 

Affected API

vim.host.NetworkSystem.addServiceConsolVirtualNic

vim.host.NetworkSystem.AddVirtualNic

vim.host.NetworkSystem.UpdateServiceConsoleVirtualNic

vim.host.NetworkSystem.UpdateVirtualNic

Host network related APIs

vim.OpaqueNetwork
vim.OpaqueNetwork extends vim.Network. So all APIs related with vim.Network are affected. vim.Network is read only property, there is no API to change that. Here is a list of objects/properties which contain vim.Network. Since it does not change anything in the base class, your script still works but you may lose additional information for the Opaque network.
 

vim.HostSystem

vim.fault.CannotAccessNetwork

vim.fault.CannotUseNetwork

vim.ComputeResource

vim.Datacenter

vim.host.Summary.ConfigSummary

vim.host.EsxAgentHostManager.ConfigInfo

vim.vApp.IpPool.Association

vim.event.NetworkEventArgument

vim.Network.Summary

vim.fault.NoAvailableIp

vim.vcha.FailoverClusterConfiguration.NodeDeploymentSpec

vim.OvfManager.NetworkMapping

vim.vApp.CloneSpec.NetworkMappingPair

vim.VirtualApp

vim.vm.device.VirtualEthernetCard.NetworkBackingInfo

vim.VirtualMachine

vim.host.OpaqueSwitch and vim.host.OpaqueNetworkInfo
vim.host.OpaqueSwitch and vim.host.OpaqueNetworkInfo are new properties in vim.host.NetworkInfo. So all APIs related with vim.host.Networkinfo are affected. They are read only properties for the user. If you want to get them correctly, code changes are needed for your script. Affected objects and APIs:
 

Affected Objects	Note
vim.host.NetworkInfo
vim.host.ConfigInfo	vim.host.NetworkInfo is a property of it
vim.host.NetworkSystem	vim.host.NetworkInfo is a property of it
vim.host.ConfigManager	vim.host.HostNetworkSystem is a property of it
vim.HostSystem	vim.host.ConfigInfo is a property of it vim.host.ConfigManager is a property of it

For more information on how to interact with the VIM API, see Managed Object - Opaque Network.

If you interact with vSphere using SDKs, here are some of vSphere SDK code samples:

Sample code

           private VirtualDeviceBackingInfo getBacking(ManagedObjectReference network)
                     throws InvalidPropertyFaultMsg, RuntimeFaultFaultMsg {
             switch (network.getType()) {
             case "Network":
                     VirtualEthernetCardNetworkBackingInfo nicBacking = new VirtualEthernetCardNetworkBackingInfo();
                     nicBacking.setDeviceName(value);
                     return nicBacking;

             case "OpaqueNetwork":
                     OpaqueNetworkSummary opaqueNetworkSummary = (OpaqueNetworkSummary) getMOREFs.entityProps(network,
                                    "summary");
                     VirtualEthernetCardOpaqueNetworkBackingInfo opaqueBack = new VirtualEthernetCardOpaqueNetworkBackingInfo();
                  opaqueBack.setOpaqueNetworkId(opaqueNetworkSummary.getOpaqueNetworkId());
                  opaqueBack.setOpaqueNetworkType(opaqueNetworkSummary.getOpaqueNetworkType());
                     return opaqueBack;

             case "DistributedVirtualPortgroup":
                     DVPortgroupConfigInfo dvPortgroupConfigInfo = (DVPortgroupConfigInfo) getMOREFs.entityProps(network,
                                    "config");
                     String uuid = getMOREFs.entityProps(dvPortgroupConfigInfo.getDistributedVirtualSwitch(), "uuid").toString();
                     VirtualEthernetCardDistributedVirtualPortBackingInfo dvpBack = new VirtualEthernetCardDistributedVirtualPortBackingInfo();
                     DistributedVirtualSwitchPortConnection dvsPortConnection = new DistributedVirtualSwitchPortConnection();
                  dvsPortConnection.setPortgroupKey(dvPortgroupConfigInfo.getKey());
                     dvsPortConnection.setSwitchUuid(uuid);
                     dvpBack.setPort(dvsPortConnection);
                     return dvpBack;
             default:
                     return null;
             }

     }

.....

                     //Add a new nic
                     VirtualEthernetCard nic = new VirtualE1000E();        
                     //get the list of available host networks
                     HashMap<String, ManagedObjectReference> availableNetworks = getAvailableHostNetworks();
                     if (availableNetworks.containsKey(value)) {
                            nic.setBacking(getBacking(availableNetworks.get(value)));
                     } else {
                            nic.setBacking(null);
                     }

                     VirtualDeviceConnectInfo deviceConnectInfo = new VirtualDeviceConnectInfo();
                     deviceConnectInfo.setStartConnected((nic.getBacking() != null));
                     deviceConnectInfo.setConnected((nic.getBacking() != null));

                     nic.setConnectable(deviceConnectInfo);
                     nic.setAddressType("generated");
                     nic.setKey(-1);
                     VirtualDeviceConfigSpec nicSpec = new VirtualDeviceConfigSpec();
                     nicSpec.setOperation(VirtualDeviceConfigSpecOperation.ADD);
                     nicSpec.setDevice(nic);
                     nicSpecArray.add(nicSpec);
                     vmConfigSpec.getDeviceChange().addAll(nicSpecArray);
                     ManagedObjectReference tmor = vimPort.reconfigVMTask(virtualMachine, vmConfigSpec);
                     if (getTaskResultAfterDone(tmor)) {
                            System.out.println("Virtual Machine reconfigured successfully");
                     } else {
                            System.out.println("Virtual Machine reconfigur failed");
                     }

Code Examples:

• Pyvmomi Sample
• Fog in Ruby
• Ansible in python
• PowerCLI Sample