4.7 VXLAN Design Considerations
VXLAN (Virtual Extensible LAN) is an overlay technology that is used by VMware NSX to decouple the networking services from the physical network. The physical network then becomes a backbone network used to transport overlay traffic as quickly as possible. The main functions that VXLAN enables are:
• Rapid deployment of virtual networks into the data center
• Mobility of workloads across Layer 3 boundaries
• Large-scale multi-tenancy, allowing a service provider to extend their network beyond the VLAN limit of 4,096 networks within their data center