Senior Network Engineer – BGP EVPN / VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) Specialist
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Working Arrangement: On-site
Engagement: 5 days (40 hours)
Start Date: ASAP
Language: English
Security Clearance: NATO Secret preferred; Dutch police screening (B-Screening) may be sufficient
Daily Rate: Negotiable
Job Overview
We are seeking an experienced **Senior Network Engineer / Technical Consultant** with a strong combination of advanced BGP networking, EVPN/VXLAN, and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) expertise to support a customer with a complex, multi-datacenter network infrastructure. The consultant will conduct a comprehensive health check of the existing spine-leaf network fabric, investigate network traffic black-holing during failover scenarios, validate Data Centre Interconnect (DCI) resilience, and review the integration between VMware NSX-T and the underlying network infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have deep hands‑on experience with BGP EVPN, VXLAN, Dell PowerSwitch networking, VMware NSX-T, and VCF deployments on Dell VxRail.
Key Responsibilities
- Conduct a comprehensive health check of the existing spine-leaf network fabric across two datacenters.
- Review and validate BGP EVPN and VXLAN configurations, including tenant VRFs and route propagation.
- Investigate VXLAN traffic black-holing when a border leaf loses all local DCI members despite a valid BGP path remaining through the VLT peer.
- Analyse DCI resiliency and verify traffic forwarding and failover behaviour across the VLT inter-chassis link.
- Validate end‑to‑end network connectivity between VMware NSX segments, the spine‑leaf fabric, and endpoints behind the FortiGate 1100E firewall.
- Review Dell OS10 firmware versions and Dell‑qualified network optics.
- Assess VMware NSX Edge clusters across Test & Acceptance and Production environments, including segment stretching between datacenters.
- Review the existing DCI topology, identify unsupported configurations, and recommend a supported design aligned with best practices.
- Support the customer in validating the wider network infrastructure and VMware Cloud Foundation estate.
- Provide technical recommendations to improve network resilience, redundancy, and overall infrastructure stability.
Technical Environment
- Networking: BGP, BGP EVPN, VXLAN, VRFs, spine-leaf architecture.
- Switching: Dell PowerSwitch S5232F-ON spine switches and S5148F-ON leaf switches.
- Network Resilience: Data Centre Interconnect (DCI), Virtual Link Trunking (VLT), inter‑chassis links, redundant routing and failover.
- Virtualisation: VMware NSX‑T, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), VCF on Dell VxRail.
- NSX Integration: NSX Edge clusters, segment stretching, overlay networking.
- Firewall: FortiGate 1100E.
- Firmware and Hardware: Dell OS10 and Dell‑qualified optics.
Required Experience
- Extensive hands‑on experience with complex BGP networking and BGP EVPN.
- Strong understanding of VXLAN overlays, tenant VRFs, route propagation and troubleshooting black‑holing issues.
- Proven experience designing, troubleshooting and validating spine‑leaf network fabrics across multiple datacenters.
- Strong knowledge of DCI architectures, VLT, redundancy and failover mechanisms.
- Practical experience with VMware NSX‑T and its integration with physical network infrastructure.
- Experience with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), ideally deployed on Dell VxRail.
- Experience with Dell PowerSwitch platforms and OS10 is highly desirable.
- Ability to perform independent technical assessments and provide clear recommendations on supported network designs and best practices.
Additional Information
- The engagement is expected to last five days (40 hours), with an ASAP start.
- The consultant must be available to work on‑site in Brussels, Belgium.
- English‑speaking candidates are suitable; there are no nationality restrictions