What is the recommended Gateway Firewall edge size for production environments?

For production environments, VMware recommends deploying NSX Edge nodes using the 'Large' or 'X-Large' form factor. These sizes provide the necessary CPU, memory, and network I/O resources to handle the significant traffic loads and stateful session requirements of production-grade Gateway Firewall services. The 'Small' size is intended for lab or proof-of-concept deployments, and 'Medium' is for small-scale environments with limited services. Using undersized Edge nodes in production can lead to performance bottlenecks, dropped packets, and service instability.

A. Small: This size is explicitly recommended for lab and proof-of-concept environments only and lacks the resources for production traffic.
B. Medium: This size is for small-scale production environments and is generally not recommended for deployments with significant Gateway Firewall usage.
D. Any size: This is incorrect because performance and stability are directly tied to the Edge node's resources; proper sizing is a critical design consideration.

1. VMware NSX 4.1 Installation Guide, "NSX Edge VM System Requirements" section. This table details the resource allocation for each form factor and notes that "Large" and "Extra Large" are for production environments.

2. VMware NSX Reference Design Guide, Chapter on "NSX Edge Design". The guide consistently recommends Large or X-Large Edge nodes for production deployments to ensure performance and scale for services like the Gateway Firewall.