More and more enterprises are seeking full-stack VMware alternative solutions, including alternatives to the network security and visualization component – NSX.
As a core component of the SmartX Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP), Everoute provides comprehensive software-defined networking and security functionalities. Paired with ECP’s network virtualization and traffic visualization features, Everoute matches NSX in capability while streamlining operations and maintenance (O&M) and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO).
In the sections that follow, we will outline Everoute’s key capabilities and advantages through a detailed comparison with VMware NSX, and present real-world cases where organizations have successfully adopted Everoute as an NSX alternative.
Everoute vs. NSX: Feature Comparisons
Everoute offers key capabilities such as distributed firewall, load balancing, virtual private cloud (VPC) networking, and container networking. It supports both virtualized and containerized workloads, enabling unified network and security management across virtual machines (VMs) and containers. Integrated with SmartX native hypervisor ELF and multi-cluster management module – CloudTower, Everoute allows users to manage virtual networks and security policies in a comprehensive and visualized manner.
Below is a detailed comparison of key features:
It’s clear that software-defined networking and security capabilities provided by SmartX ECP can match those of vSphere and NSX in areas such as network virtualization, security, and monitoring. In addition, SmartX offers enhanced functionality for specific use cases, for example, enabling one-click isolation of individual VMs and allowing users to configure and monitor all network and security features within a single management platform. These optimizations streamline the user interface and operational workflow, further improving the overall management experience and strengthening the security of the virtualized environment.
Everoute vs NSX: Key Advantages for VMware Replacement
Highly Similar Architecture Design: Minimizing Migration Complexity
The virtual distributed network in SmartX ECP clusters shares a highly similar architecture with VMware vSphere’s VDS. From overall architectural design and underlying implementation mechanisms to the sets of supported features, the two systems maintain a high degree of consistency. This architectural alignment offers users a familiar and seamless migration experience, significantly reducing the learning curve and time needed to adapt, ultimately enabling a smooth transition from the VMware environment.
All-in-One Management: Enhancing O&M Efficiency
VMware’s various networking and monitoring capabilities are distributed across multiple independent platforms, including vCenter, NSX Manager, Avi Load Balancer, and the Aria O&M Suite (which incorporates the former vRealize Network Insight and vRealize Log Insight). As a result, administrators are often required to switch between different interfaces, increasing operational complexity and the learning curve.
In contrast, SmartX ECP’s virtual networking offers a truly unified “all-in-one” management experience through CloudTower. By fully integrating networking, security, and O&M functionalities into a single management console, SmartX enables users to configure, monitor, and manage all network-related resources from one portal. This not only streamlines daily workflows but also reduces technical barriers, making network resource provisioning and security policy deployment more efficient and intuitive.
Zero Trust Security: Making Security Management Easier
Both Everoute and NSX’s distributed firewalls are based on the Zero Trust security architecture, aiming to deliver fine-grained protection within the data center through micro-segmentation. This approach eliminates threats from unknown vulnerabilities and achieves the goal of “maximizing communication security with the minimal number of security rules.”
Building on this foundation, Everoute offers a more intuitive and efficient implementation. It uses a three-part rule configuration model—consisting of policy objects, inbound rules, and outbound rules—combined with a clear, graphical interface that makes it easier for administrators to understand and manage network policies. In addition, Everoute supports one-click isolation of VMs, enabling rapid response to security incidents and preventing potential threats from spreading.
Visualized Network Traffic Analysis: Collaborating on a Unified Platform
NSX provides two distinct network traffic analysis tools, each with a different focus:
- Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight) focuses on global traffic monitoring. It is designed for traffic analysis and policy optimization across physical infrastructure, virtual networks, Kubernetes environments, and hybrid cloud deployments.
- NSX Intelligence, on the other hand, is centered on policy enforcement and validation. It enables users to quickly verify the effectiveness of security policies within NSX-managed environments and helps optimize east-west traffic control.
While both tools offer valuable capabilities, they operate on separate management platforms and lack integration. As a result, users must switch between different interfaces to access these features, adding unnecessary operations.
In contrast, SmartX ECP integrates network traffic visualization as part of its observability platform, offering a more streamlined solution through CloudTower. It provides intuitive visualizations—both in topology and tabular views—of communication across VM networks, system networks, and container networks, enabling users to quickly identify and troubleshoot network issues.
Furthermore, it works seamlessly with Everoute’s distributed firewall capabilities, allowing users to automatically discover application topologies, monitor the effectiveness of security policies in real time, and access related logs. This tight integration helps users configure and manage security policies more effectively.
VCF Avoidance: Saving Subscription Cost
Moreover, with Broadcom’s new sales strategy, key features such as the NSX Distributed Firewall, NSX Intelligence, and Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRNI) are now only available through the high-cost VCF portfolio. In contrast, Everoute can be a more cost-effective alternative with comparable distributed firewall and traffic visualization solutions and significant cost savings for enterprises.
Replacing NSX with Everoute: Validation and Customer Stories
Currently, over a hundred leading enterprises across finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries have adopted Everoute to secure their virtualized and containerized environments. Some of these users have already validated Everoute’s reliability in production environments and are steadily advancing their transition away from NSX.
A Leading Securities Firm: Validating Microsegmentation Security on SmartX ECP
SmartX and a leading securities firm jointly conducted the research project to verify SmartX ECP’s micro-segmentation capabilities. During testing, the user simulated a production environment by deploying a 3-node SmartX ECP cluster on servers powered by Kunpeng processors and running the registration and clearing system (TA6). The evaluation covered multiple areas, including Everoute’s traffic visualization, microsegmentation access control, security protection under simulated attacks, network performance with Everoute enabled, architectural reliability, policy import/export, policy following behavior, and upgrade/maintenance capabilities.
The results showed that Everoute successfully passed all tests and fully meets the VM access control requirements specified in the “Cybersecurity Classified Protection Standards 2.0” – Secured Computing Environment section.
A Financial Investment Institution: Replacing VMware vSphere and NSX with SmartX ECP to Enable Cross-DC DR Between Heterogeneous Clusters
A leading investment firm originally relied on VMware virtualization and NSX to support its production systems. In response to the growing trend of IT localization, the firm decided to adopt domestic hyperconverged software and hardware to build a new production cluster. At the same time, it repurposed the hardware from its original VMware cluster to set up a DR cluster, ensuring the stable and continuous operation of the new clusters.
While choosing the HCI solution, the customer placed great emphasis on the vendor’s in-house R&D capabilities, particularly the platform’s security features and DR capabilities, which needed to match the standards of VMware.
After extensive testing and evaluation, the customer chose to build a localized IT infrastructure using SmartX ECP, powered by its native hypervisor ELF, and deployed on Hygon-based servers. This cluster supports OA application systems and related components, including domestic databases and middleware. At the same time, the customer replaced VMware NSX with Everoute and introduced SMTX Backup & DR to provide double data protection for the production environment:
- By deploying Everoute’s distributed firewall, the customer enabled 3 layers of interconnection within the data center and implemented microsegmentation protection for data traffic. This not only fulfilled IT localization requirements but also delivered more fine-grained, stringent, and streamlined network security management.
- With SMTX Backup & DR’s replication and recovery features, data from the production environment is replicated to a SmartX ECP-based DR cluster built on the customer’s existing VMware hardware (Intel-based servers). In addition, VMs in the production environment are backed up to repurposed NAS storage, ensuring data availability while reducing the overall cost of DR.
Currently, SmartX ECP provides both data storage protection and network security for the production environment against malicious attacks and data-center-level failures, helping the customer achieve architectural innovation while reducing hardware investment costs
For more information:
Network I/O Virtualization in SmartX HCI: Virtual NIC, PCI Pass-through and SR-IOV Pass-through
Eliminate Virtual Network Blind Spots with SmartX Network Visualization
Shield Your Business from Ransomware with SmartX HCI: Detect, Isolate, Recover
VPC Networking in SmartX ECP: Secure, Flexible, and Highly Available
