VMware has begun to include network and security capabilities in a virtualized computing environment based on vSphere with the vCloud Networking and Security product.

With the Nicira acquisition, this product has been replaced by NSX, a network virtualization solution (or network overlay solution) that enables the creation of entire networks in software and embeds them in the hypervisor layer, abstracted from the underlying physical hardware. All network components can be provisioned in minutes, without the need to modify the application or the physical environment.

NSX-V is tightly integrated with vSphere components requiring both ESXi (used both as a data plane and also for hosting some NFV and VMs used as a control plane) and vCenter (NSX manager is paired with it and the management interface is just an extension of vSphere Web Client). Although, there is also an NSX edition for Linux systems (NSX-T), for NSX-V, the vSphere platform is the foundation.