tl/dr: RFC1918 (private) addresses are categorized as E/W by VRNI by default, non-RFC1918 (public) addresses are categorized as N/S by default. You can flag private as N/S or public as E/W to ensure the reports reflect your environment.
Looking over the vRNI docs I ran into an interesting description. Note these statements
- East-West IPsThe IPs that are within the range of RFC1918 standard are considered private IPs. The IPs that are outside the RFC1918 are treated as Internet IPs. However, users can specify their East-West IPs (datacenter public IPs) that they want to be treated as non-Internet IPs while tagging flows and micro-segmentation, even if these are outside the private IP address range as defined by RFC1918. [Read more]
- North-South IPsThe IPs that are in the RFC1918 space are categorized as North-South IPs. The users can specify their North-South IPs while tagging flows and micro-segmentation. [Read more]
There seems to be confusion and contradictions there. I would rewrite this as:
RFC1918
Defined by the IETF as private IP addresses, RFC1918 sets aside the networks 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12 and 192.168.0.0/16 for private or non-Internet use.
East-West IPs
VRNI classifies any IP address range addressed by the RFC1918 standard as East-West, which is traffic that is “internal” to your data center. If you have addresses or networks outside of the RFC1918 range you would like classified as East/West, you can add those IPs to the East/West range. This can be used for stretched clusters, hybrid clouds or any scenario where part of your data center is accessed by a public IP address.
North-South IPs
VRNI classifies any IP addresses not covered by the RFC1918 standard as North-South, which is traffic to or from a source “outside” of your data center. If you have addresses or networks in the private address space you would like classified as North/South you can add those networks to the North/South range. This is useful for environments were you have remote users or remote data centers accessed by private IP ranges but you want the traffic classified as North/South in your VRNI reports.
