A network gateway address is the IP address that serves as a point of contact from within the network to other networks or the outside Internet.

In vDC and vApp networks, the gateway address combined with the network mask determine the size, or number of IPs that are contained within that network. In Navisite Cloud Director (NCD), networks' network masks are always 255.255.255.0, which will result in networks with 254 usable IP addresses.

Selecting a gateway address

When creating vDC and vApp networks, you must select a gateway address. Gateway addresses should:

• End in .1 (required).
• Not match any other network's gateway address (required).
• Not overlap any other network's range of IPs (recommended).
  
• Be an address within the private IP space
  (strongly recommended; we suggest using 10.x.x.x addresses for vDC network gateways and 192.168.x.x addresses for vApp network gateways).