Understanding replication modes

Let's discuss replication modes in more detail and later we will connect the logical switches to virtual machines. With the addition of an NSX Controller, the requirement for multicast protocol support on physical networks is completely removed for VXLAN. There are three replication modes:

• Multicast : When multicast replication mode is chosen for a given logical switch, NSX relies on the Layer 2 and Layer 3 multicast capability of the data center physical network to ensure VXLAN encapsulated multi-destination traffic is sent to all the VTEPs. This mode is recommended only when you are upgrading from older VXLAN deployments (vCloud network security). It requires PIM/IGMP on a physical network.

• Unicast : The control plane is handled by the NSX Controller. All unicast traffic leverages head end replication. No multicast IP address or special network configuration is required. In unicast mode, the ESXi hosts in the NSX domain are divided into separate VTEP segments...