Prism Central uses it to deliver floating IPs, overlay subnets and VPCs. Underneath, Network Controller drives this virtualised network layer.
Also called FVN.
Read more: Nutanix docs
In the Ultra Transcenders books
Each book explains Flow Virtual Networking in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.
Terms in this definition
- Prism Central
A standalone instance, made up of either one VM or three in scale-out form, for monitoring and managing many clusters centrally.
- Network Controller
Server role in Windows Server SDN that provides central management of the virtual network infrastructure.
Related terms
- BGP
Shares routes automatically. Flow Virtual Networking runs it to connect a local gateway to a remote peer.
- ICMP
Ping runs on this protocol. Health checks on Flow Virtual Networking load balancers look for its unreachable replies, and Flow Network Security rules can permit it by name.
- L7
The OSI application layer. Flow Virtual Networking's network load balancer stops at Layer 4, so it offers no balancing at this level.
- NAT
Overlapping VPC addresses are fine on a NAT external subnet in Flow Virtual Networking but not on a no-NAT one. The technique translates internal IP addresses into external ones.
- Network Controller
Service inside Prism Central that powers Flow Virtual Networking and Flow Network Security Next-Gen. X-Large deployments turn it on automatically; X-Small ones cannot run it.
- Network Gateway
A VM deployed by Nutanix that gives Flow Virtual Networking its BGP, VTEP and VPN connections.
- Network Load Balancer
Balances traffic arriving at a VPC or travelling between its VMs, using native layer 4 sessions. Flow Virtual Networking provides it, and each session is made up of targets and a listener.
- Scale-out gateway
Shares a VPC's North-South traffic between as many as four active gateway hosts, using a VLAN external subnet in Flow Virtual Networking. One redirect-chassis host is then no longer a bottleneck.