A "philosophical question" about aNet

Vittore Zen Lv1Posted Feb-19-2025 14:11


Official documentation says:
- VMs that run on the same node communicate via an internal bridge
- Different node VMs communicate via overlay interface when connected to vSwitch
- Does not go to Physical Edge
- Different node VMs will communicate via Edge instead of overlay when the VM directly connects to Edge.

Now consider the diagram below:



If I have two VMs on two nodes and these two VMs are on the same L2 and L3 segment, is it worth putting a virtual switch so that when they talk to each other they use the Overlay network?
Or even in the first case (directly connected to the edge virtual switch) does it use the overlay network?

Thanks for your clarifications.
v.

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Hi,
in the left diagram, these VMs use the edge network even for the traffic among them. In the right diagram, the traffic between virtual machines goes to the overlay network as both virtual machines are on the same virtual switch. If you have a scenario with two virtual machines on different virtual switches, the edge interface is used for the traffic between them.
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Enrico Vanzetto Lv4Posted Feb-19-2025 15:49
  
Hi,
in the left diagram, these VMs use the edge network even for the traffic among them. In the right diagram, the traffic between virtual machines goes to the overlay network as both virtual machines are on the same virtual switch. If you have a scenario with two virtual machines on different virtual switches, the edge interface is used for the traffic between them.
Vittore Zen Lv1Posted Feb-19-2025 16:29
  


So Scenario B has a better performance?

v.
AR Lv2Posted Feb-20-2025 12:23
  
Hello,
As you can see from the figure on the left, these virtual machines use the edge network for all of their traffic. Since both virtual machines are on the same virtual switch, traffic between them in the right diagram goes to the overlay network. In the event that two virtual machines are located on separate virtual switches, the traffic between them is handled via the edge interface.

Newbie437257 Posted Mar-26-2025 12:00
  
If you connect both VMs directly to the Edge, traffic will be routed via the Edge network, which could introduce more hops and potential latency.
Football Bros
Marco Barbieri Lv1Posted Feb-11-2026 21:33
  
Hi all, I enter this thread because I see a lot of confusion on OVERLAY network.

NONE of the previously showed enviroment will use network overlay, all of the packet will flow througth the Port Group and the edge directly.
There is no reason to encapsulate a tcp packet when it has the capability to reach the destination without usage of overlay network.

Overlay network will intervene for example if you place a virtual router or a virtual firewall in the middle, between the virtual Switch and the Edge/trunk

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