Planning a VXLAN configuration, includes the following steps:
Determine the virtual network topology in a physical network. For example, if you are hosting a service that consists of several VMs on different servers, you can assign a VXLAN segment for these VMs. The VMs in this VXLAN segment can communicate with each other but not with the other VMs that are not in this VXLAN segment.
Verify that the physical servers are connected through an IP interface and that IP multicasting is enabled on the physical network.
Create a numbering scheme for the VXLAN segments. For example, you can assign the VXLAN segments (VNIs) based on the application hosted by the VMs.
Create a VXLAN datalink by specifying the IP address and the VXLAN segment ID.
Optionally, you can assign the VXLAN segments with their own multicast address.
Create VNICs over VXLAN datalinks and assign the VNICs to zones.
Alternatively, you can assign the VXLAN links as the underlying link for the zone's anet link.
Before using a VXLAN, check whether you have met the following requirements:
Ensure that IP multicasting is supported on the network. If IP multicasting is not supported, VMs in the VXLAN cannot communicate with each other.
If the VXLAN includes servers in different IP subnets, then multicast routing must be supported across the subnets. If multicasting routing is not supported, only the VMs over the VXLANs on the same IP subnet can communicate with each other and VMs over VXLANs on different IP subnets, for example, geographically dispersed data centers cannot communicate with each other.
For more information about naming conventions of a VXLAN datalink, see VXLAN Naming Convention.