In a modernVCF 9.0environment using theVirtual Private Cloud (VPC)model, North-South traffic follows a specific hierarchical path. When a VM, such asSa-transit-web-01, initiates an ICMP request to an external destination (the Student Desktop), the packet must traverse the VPC's internal routing before exiting to the physical network.

The first hop is theVPC Tier-1 Gateway. This gateway manages the localized subnets within the VPC. In this architecture, the VPC Tier-1 is typically configured with a default route ($0.0.0.0/0$) pointing to theTransit Gateway (TGW). The gateway address 100.64.0.0 represents the provider-side interface of the Router Link connecting the VPC to the Transit Gateway. Thus, the command output showing the default route to 100.64.0.0 belongs to the VPC Gateway.

The second hop is theDistributed Transit Gateway DR. The Transit Gateway acts as the aggregation point for multiple VPCs and provides the bridge to the physical datacenter fabric. The command output for this object shows a default route with a gateway of 0.0.0.0, indicating it is directly peered or using a specific unnumbered interface to reach the physical router. Additionally, it identifies the specific physical router IP (172.20.13.254/32) as a known local next-hop, which is a common characteristic of the Transit Gateway's forwarding table when performing North-South transitions.

Finally, theTransport Node (ESXi Host)is where the physical packet capture occurs. As the packet exits the virtual environment, it is placed on a physical uplink (vmnic1). The packet capture output confirms the transformation of the traffic: it shows the source IP of the VM (or its translated NAT address 172.20.13.65) reaching out to the destination 172.20.10.10. The inclusion of ipproto 0x01 (ICMP) and the specific MAC addresses confirms that the packet has successfully traversed the NSX overlay and is now a standard Ethernet frame on the physical wire.