A group is a logical construct that represents a collection of objects in NSX, such as segments, segment ports, virtual machines, IP addresses, MAC addresses, tags, or security policies. A group can be used to define dynamic membership criteria based on various attributes or filters. A group can also be used as the scope of a distributed firewall rule, which means that the rule will apply to all the traffic that matches the group membership criteria32

The NSX Edge supports L2 VPN (Layer 2 VPN) functionality, which allows it to connect different Layer 2 networks over an IP transport.

Third-party hardware VPN devices can also be used as L2 VPN clients, providing connectivity between different Layer 2 networks through an external device.

master: The master role in NSX Manager is responsible for managing and coordinating the other NSX Manager nodes in the cluster.

policy: The policy role handles the policy-driven API and configuration, allowing administrators to define and manage network and security policies.

controller: The controller role in NSX Manager manages control plane functions and handles routing, switching, and other network state information required for NSX operations.

It supports a 4-byte autonomous system number: BGP on a Tier-0 Gateway supports 4-byte AS (Autonomous System) numbers, which are necessary for larger routing domains.

Can be used as an Exterior Gateway Protocol: BGP is commonly used as an Exterior Gateway Protocol to establish routing between different autonomous systems (AS).

BGP is enabled by default: On a Tier-0 Gateway, BGP is typically enabled by default, allowing administrators to configure it for external routing.

A screenshot of a computer application Description automatically generated

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMwa re-NSX-Intelligence/4.0/user-guide/GUID-DC78552B-2CC4-410D-A6C9-3FE0DCEE545B.html

Distributed Firewall on VDS is a feature of NSX-T Data Center that allows users to install Distributed Security for vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS) without the need to deploy an NSX Virtual Distributed Switch (N-VDS). This feature provides NSX security capabilities such as Distributed Firewall (DFW), Distributed IDS/IPS, Identity Firewall, L7 App ID, FQDN Filtering, NSX Intelligence, and NSX Malware Prevention. To enable this feature, the following requirements must be met in the environment:

The NSX version must be 3.2 and later1. This is the minimum version that supports Distributed Security for VDS.

The VDS version must be 6.6.0 and later1. This is the minimum version that supports the NSX host preparation operation that activates the DFW with the default rule set to allow.

References:

Overview of NSX IDS/IPS and NSX Malware Prevention

Load Balancing Algorithm 

You specify the following parameters during the creation of a server pool:

• Name: A unique name for the server pool.

• Cloud: The cloud connector details for the NSX environment.

• VRF Context: Virtual Routing Framework (VRF) is a method to isolate traffic in a system. VRF is also called a route domain in the load balancer community. A global VRF context is created by default. Network administrators might create custom VRF contexts to isolate traffic between different tenants or subsets.

• Default Server Port: New connections to servers will use this destination service port. The default port is 80.

• Load-balancing algorithm: The selected load-balancing algorithm controls how the incoming connections are distributed among the servers in the pool.

• Tier-1 gateway (logical router): Specify the Tier-1 gateway that you want to attach the server pool to. This value matches the Tier-1 gateway specified for the virtual service and VIP.

 The NSX Application Platform Deployment features are divided into three form factors: Evaluation, Standard, and Advanced. Each form factor determines which NSX features can be activated or installed on the platform1. The Evaluation form factor supports only NSX Intelligence, which provides network visibility and analytics for NSX-T environments2. The Standard form factor supports both NSX Intelligence and NSX Network Detection and Response, which provides network threat detection and response capabilities for NSX-T environments3. The Advanced form factor supports all four features: NSX Intelligence, NSX Network Detection and Response, NSX Malware Prevention, and NSX Metrics1.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/nsx-application-platform/GUID-85CD2728-8081-45CE-9A4A-D72F49779D6A.html

Auditor: Allows users to view settings and logs without making changes.

Full access: Provides complete control over all NSX settings and configurations.

None: No permissions are granted, restricting access completely.

Read: Allows users to view configurations and settings without editing capabilities.

According to the VMware NSX Documentation, these are two of the ways that you can use to configure Distributed Firewall on VDS:

NSX API: This is a RESTful API that allows you to programmatically configure and manage Distributed Firewall on VDS using HTTP methods and JSON payloads. You can use tools such as Postman or curl to send API requests to the NSX Manager node.

NSX UI: This is a graphical user interface that allows you to configure and manage Distributed Firewall on VDS using menus, tabs, buttons, and forms. You can access the NSX UI by logging in to the NSX Manager node using a web browser.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX/4.1/administration/GUID-0DEF9F18-608D-4B5C-9175-5514750E901B.html

The correct answers are A. Files and anti-malware (file) events from the NSX Edge nodes and the Security Analyzer, D. IDS/IPS events from the ESXi hosts and NSX Edge nodes, and E. Suspicious Traffic Detection events from NSX Intelligence. According to the VMware NSX Documentation3, these are the three data collection sources that are used by NSX Network Detection and Response to create correlations/intrusion campaigns.

The other options are incorrect or not supported by NSX Network Detection and Response. East-West anti-malware events from the ESXi hosts are not collected by NSX Network Detection and Response3. Distributed Firewall flow data from the ESXi hosts are not used for correlation/intrusion campaigns by NSX Network Detection and Response3.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-14BBE50D-9931-4719-8FA7-884539C0D277.html

The correct answer is to enable the OSPF toggle and to add an Area Definition for the Tier-0 gateway in the image. These two items are required to configure OSPF on the Tier-0 gateway, as explained in the web search results123.

To mark your answers by clicking twice on the image, you can double-click on the toggle switch next to OSPF to turn it on. The switch should change from gray to blue, indicating that the option is enabled. Then, you can double-click on the Set button next to Area Definition to add an area definition. A pop-up window should appear where you can specify the area ID and type. 

1. Click the OSPF toggle to enable OSPF 2. In the Area Definition field, click Set to add an area definition https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/3.2/administration/GUID-5BEC626C-5312-467D-B873-8E117349E9FC.html

IPSec VPN services can be configured at Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateways: In NSX, IPSec VPN services can be applied to both Tier-0 and Tier-1 gateways, allowing secure site-to-site connections from these gateway levels.

IPSec VPNs use the DPDK accelerated performance library: NSX leverages the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) for optimized performance, which accelerates packet processing for IPSec VPNs and improves throughput.

Both TCP and UDP are commonly used protocols for transferring log messages in syslog configurations. TCP is preferred when reliability is needed, while UDP is used for faster, connectionless transmission.

TLS can be used to secure the log messages being sent over TCP, ensuring encrypted transmission to the remote log server.

Syslog Server: NSX supports forwarding logs to a centralized syslog server, which is a standard tool for centralized logging in network environments.

VMware Aria Operations for Logs (formerly known as vRealize Log Insight): This tool provides centralized log management and analytics, specifically designed to integrate with VMware environments, including NSX, for enhanced log collection, analysis, and troubleshooting.