NSX DataCenter(Load Balancer) to VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Migration Tool

Overview

VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer (formerly known as Avi Vantage) and NSX-T integration enable network automation: agility, cost-effectiveness, and scale, from the network layers (Layer2 to Layer 3) up to the application layers (Layer 4 to Layer 7), for enterprises and service providers alike.


VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer syncs with the NSX security groups to allow developers to scale the backend dynamically without reconfiguring load balancing. The architectural alignment enables the interoperability of VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer and NSX solutions for intelligent application services that go beyond load balancing. Networks and application services can be provisioned and scaled quickly and automatically to match the application and infrastructure automation possible in the cloud and web-scale environments.


Starting with NSX-T version 3.2.0, the NSX-T Load balancer is deprecated and, in upcoming releases, will be removed completely. VMware is encouraging its customers to migrate to NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi), VMware’s flagship load balancing product, as an alternative to NSX-T Load Balancer (NSX-T LB).

The following capabilities have been incorporated to help customers deploy VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer for all (existing NSX Load Balancer as well as greenfield deployments) use cases, including NSX-T environments:

  • Install NSX Advanced Load Balancer Appliance Cluster - Avi Controllers can now be deployed through NSX-T Manager UI, providing a single pane for installing all NSX components.

  • Cross-launch NSX Advanced Load Balancer UI from NSX-T UI - Launch Avi UI from NSX-T Manager for advanced analytics, monitoring, and troubleshooting features.

NSX-T to VMware NSX Advanced Load Balancer Migration Tool

Note: This migration tool is under tech preview in NSX Advanced Load Balancer version 22.1.1.

NSX-T Convertor Tool (an Open-Source migration tool) is released for NSX-T users to help migrate virtual services and related load balancing configurations seamlessly from NSX-T LB to NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi). After the migration, customers get all the benefits that NSX Advanced Load Balancer can deliver, such as elastic load balancing, application security, autoscaling, container networking, web application firewall, and more.

The NSX-T Convertor Tool manages the entire lifecycle of the migration, taking care of the following phases:

  • Config Migration - Converting existing configuration residing at NSX-T DC to NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Vantage) configuration.

  • Traffic Cut-over - Handling the traffic migration (cutoff) from NSX-T DC to NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Vantage).

  • Rollback - Managing the rollback if required

  • Cleanup - Clean the residual configuration from NSX-T DC after the migration task

Each migration phase can be executed with a filter for individual virtual services, groups of virtual services, or all the virtual services in one go.

Use the Migration Tool to access the tool and the related documentation.

The following are the recommended paths to migrate from NSX load balancers or to deploy load balancing services on NSX for vSphere or NSX-T Data Center.

  • Customers running NSX Data Center for vSphere LB:
    • Use NSX-T Migration Coordinator to move from NSX for vSphere LB to NSX-T LB, then migrate to NSX Advanced Load Balancer at your convenience using NSX-T to Avi Migration Tool.
  • Customers running NSX-T Data Center LB:
    • Use NSX-T to Avi Migration Tool to migrate from NSX-T LB to NSX Advanced Load Balancer (Avi Vantage) .
  • Customers who deployed NSX for vSphere or NSX-T and planning to create new LB services.
    • This scenario is considered as the Greenfield deployment, so no migration is required. But, it is recommended to directly deploy new services at NSX Advanced Load Balancer using NSX-T cloud.