https://kxbjsyuhceggsyvxdkof.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/file-images/VmWare_3V0-25.25/page_66_img_1.jpg

In a modern VCF 9.0 environment using the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) model, North-South traffic

follows a specific hierarchical path. When a VM, such as Sa-transit-web-01, initiates an ICMP request

to an external destination (the Student Desktop), the packet must traverse the VPC's internal routing

before exiting to the physical network.

The first hop is the VPC Tier-1 Gateway. This gateway manages the localized subnets within the VPC.

In this architecture, the VPC Tier-1 is typically configured with a default route ($0.0.0.0/0$) pointing

to the Transit Gateway (TGW). The gateway address 100.64.0.0 represents the provider-side interface

of the Router Link connecting the VPC to the Transit Gateway. Thus, the command output showing

the default route to 100.64.0.0 belongs to the VPC Gateway.

The second hop is the Distributed Transit Gateway DR. The Transit Gateway acts as the aggregation

point for multiple VPCs and provides the bridge to the physical datacenter fabric. The command

output for this object shows a default route with a gateway of 0.0.0.0, indicating it is directly peered

or using a specific unnumbered interface to reach the physical router. Additionally, it identifies the

specific physical router IP (172.20.13.254/32) as a known local next-hop, which is a common

characteristic of the Transit Gateway's forwarding table when performing North-South transitions.

Finally, the Transport Node (ESXi Host) is where the physical packet capture occurs. As the packet

exits the virtual environment, it is placed on a physical uplink (vmnic1). The packet capture output

confirms the transformation of the traffic: it shows the source IP of the VM (or its translated NAT

address 172.20.13.65) reaching out to the destination 172.20.10.10. The inclusion of ipproto 0x01

(ICMP) and the specific MAC addresses confirms that the packet has successfully traversed the NSX

overlay and is now a standard Ethernet frame on the physical wire.