Check Point VSNext
Check Point vSNext in R82 is the modern evolution of VSX, designed to simplify virtualization of security gateways while improving scalability and management. Unlike legacy VSX, it introduces a more flexible architecture for creating and managing virtual systems, and it aligns closer to Maestro’s concept of elastic expansion—making it easier to adapt firewall capacity and resources as needed.
VSNext Installation
To enable VSNext, we need to do that on the installation wizard of the first node
After installation finishes, we will see the platform as ElasticXL with menus to manage Virtual Systems and Cluster Management
On Virtual System, by default we have the VS0 (equivalent of the VSX Gateway) and Virtual Switch 500 for the management interface
On Network Interfaces, a new warp0 interface is created to manage this VS0
Smart Console Integration
To add the VS0 to Smart Console, we add it as if its a regular gateway object
To modify which interfaces are assigned to the VS, we can do that here
New Virtual System
Next we add a new VS1 which we will assign 2 new interfaces and a virtual management IP Address so we can use it to integrate to Smart Console later
On Smart Console, we add the new VS like a regular gateway object
The VS names will automatically change following naming schemes from Smart Console, we can change the VS that we currently open on GAIA from the little swicth on top of the dashboard
Here we can see both VS are handling traffic with its own policy package like a regular VS
New Cluster Member
To add new Cluster Member, just clean install the new machine and put it in the same network
The new machine will show up as pending gateway that we can add to the cluster
To see HA status on CLI, use the same commands as in the legacy VSX Cluster
Or we can use the new Insights dashboard from CLI as well
