I recently upgraded my Home Lab “Datacenter” to support all-flash VSAN and 10Gb networking with the plan to deploy NSX-T<\/a> so that I can familiarize myself with the solution and use it to better prepare me for the VMware VCP-NV<\/a> exam certification. Since this is all brand new to me, I’ve decided that I’ll first deploy it in a nested lab environment in order to learn the deployment process as well as to minimize the risk of accidentally messing up my Home Lab environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I know there are a few blogs out in the wild already that go over the installation and setup of NSX-T, but I wanted to write my own as it will better help me retain the information that I am learning. Additionally, others may have a different setup than I have and\/or may have deployed the solution differently that the way I intend to do which is by following the published documentation. I’d like to take this time to first shout out some of my colleagues, William Lam<\/a>, Keith Lee<\/a>, Cormac Hogan<\/a>, and Sam McGeown<\/a>, as their own blogs are what inspired me to deploy the solution for myself and document the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This post will serve as the main page where I’ll post the hyperlinks to each post in the series. I’ll be deploying a virtual router\/firewall, 3x ESXi VMs, and a witness appliance so that I can configure a virtual 2-node VSAN compute cluster. I’ll be managing the environment via a vCenter Server Appliance or VCSA, and a Windows Server 2019 Core OS Domain Controller or DC. I won’t cover the installation and configuration of the DC as it’s out of scope for this series, nor will I go over the deployment of the VCSA or VSAN configuration as this can be done by following the documentation<\/a>. And, since this is just a small nested lab, the remaining host that isn’t a part of the VSAN cluster will serve as a single-node Management cluster host where the DC, VCSA, and NSX-T Appliances will reside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I will cover the router setup, ESXi VM configuration, and NSX-T deployment. For my setup, I am going to leverage a Sophos XG firewall Home Edition<\/a> since I’ve always had an interest in learning more about these firewalls, but also because I typically see pfSense<\/a> being used for virtual routers and I wanted to try something different. If you are using this as a guide for your own deployment, feel free to use your router\/firewall of choice as there are plenty out there like FreeSCO<\/a>, Quagga<\/a>, or VyOS<\/a>, just to name a few. So, with that said, I hope you all enjoy the content in this series!<\/p>\n\n\n\n NSX-T Home Lab Series<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n