North-south traffic explained

In computer networking, north-south traffic is network traffic flowing into and out of a data center.

Traffic

Based on the most commonly deployed network topology of systems within a data center, north–south traffic typically indicates data flow that either enters or leaves the data center from/to a system physically residing outside the data center, such as user to server.

Southbound traffic is data entering the data center (through a firewall and/or other networking infrastructure). Data exiting the data center is northbound traffic, commonly routed through a firewall[1] to Internet space.

The other direction of traffic flow is east-west traffic which typically indicates data flow within a data center.[2]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: NSX Packet Walks – North/South Traffic . 2022-01-09.
  2. Book: Denton, James . [{{GBurl|cfWoCwAAQBAJ}} Learning OpenStack Networking (Neutron) ]. 2015-11-27 . Packt Publishing Ltd . 978-1-78528-079-5 . en.