Logical switches have a similar functionality to physical switches—they permit the isolation of your applications and tenants for security and for other purposes. A logical switch creates a broadcast domain to allow the isolation of virtual machines. A logical switch is mapped to a unique VXLAN, which encapsulates the virtual machine traffic and carries it over the physical IP network.
Using logical switches, you can create VLANs in a similar way to a physical switch that spans large compute clusters. This now allows you to migrate your virtual machines using vMotion without any limitations of the physical network. This also allows you to have more control of your virtual network without having to alter or modify the physical network constructs. The logical switch is mapped to a VXLAN that encapsulates the traffic over the physical network. We discussed VXLAN and its packet architecture in Chapter 2, NSX Core Components:
Picture courtesy of VMware
Logical switches are local...