VXLAN basics and use cases (when / when not to use it)

I have been getting so many hits on my blog for VXLAN I figured it was time to expand a bit on what I have written about so far. My first blog post was about Configuring VXLAN, the steps required to set it up in your vSphere environment. As I had many questions about the physical requirements I followed up with an article about exactly that, VXLAN Requirements. Now I am seeing more and more questions around where and when VXLAN would be a great fit, so lets start with some VXLAN basics.

The first question that I would like to answer is what does VXLAN enable you to do?

In short, and I am trying to make it as simple as I possibly can here… VXLAN allows you to create a logical network for your virtual machines across different networks. More technically speaking, you can create a layer 2 network on top of layer 3. VXLAN does this through encapsulation. Kamau Wanguhu wrote some excellent articles about how this works, and I suggest you read that if you are interested. (VXLAN Primer Part 1, VXLAN Primer Part 2) On top of that I would also highly recommend Massimo’s Use Case article, some real useful info in there! Before we continue, I want to emphasize that you could potentially create 16 million networks using VXLAN, compare this to the ~4000 VLANs and you understand by this technology is important for the software defined datacenter.

--> Please see the rest on the blog : http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2012/11/02/vxlan-use-cases/