The vPC Peer Link should never be blocking because this link carries important traffic such as the Cisco Fabric Services over Ethernet (CFSoE) Protocol. The peer link is always forwarding. STP from SW8 and SW9: STP from NXOS1 and NXOS2: In the correct design, the vPC Peer Link should be used only in case of failure. All links are up and active: The link between SW8 and NXOS2 is down:...
vPC Order of Operations IP connectivity for Peer Keepalive Enable vPC & LACP globally Create vPC domain define Peer Keepalive address configure vPC role priority (Optional) - lower priority => vPC primary switch. (default 32667) Establish Port Channel for vPC Peer link Verify vPC Consistency Parameters Disable vPC Member Port (optional but recommended) Configure vPC Member Ports Enable vPC Member Ports Make sure keepalive links is up and check IP reachability (mgmt0 could be used)...
Three Main Types of MCEC (Multi Chassis EtherChannel) C3750 Cross Stack Port Channels (StackWise) single control plane C6500 Virtual Switching System (VSS) single control plane via Virtual Switch Link (VSL) Nexus Virtaul Port Channel (vPC) separate control planes separate control plane protocol instances (STP/IGPs/BGP/FHRP) via a Peer Link (like VSS’s VSL) Each vPC peer has Peer Link to sync control plane between vPC peers (CAM/ARP/IGMP) uses CFSoE (Cisco Fabric Service over Ethernet) used to elect a vPC Primary and vPC Secondary Role normally not used for the data plane => much lower BW Peer Keepalive Link L3 link used as heartbeat in the control plane used to prevent active/active or “Split Brain” vPC roles not used in the vPC data plane could back to back or over routed infrastructure (vrf) vPC Member ports from downstream neighbor the vPC peers is one switch Note: VLANS on vPC Member ports must be added on the Peer link too...
Basic topology: Host Port-Channel: vPC Implementation problem - configuration must be synced between different control planes: config sync command Dual vPC or EvPC - Enhanced vPC - only N5K N7K
Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders acts as a remote line card of N7K or N5K chassis. N2K FEX - ToR - Top of the Rack N5K/N7K - EoR - End of the Row Why? Solve the problem of wiring cables in the data center. Keep all cables inside the rack as much as possible Simplify the management and reduce number of management devices. All management performed on Parent Switch (management/upgrade etc) Limitations and Parent Switches No local switching inside the N2K FEX 5K as FEX’s Parent static pinning (ports on N2K pinned to the uplink port) vPC topologies FEX ports are L2 switchports 7K as FEX’s Parent not all line cards support FEX static pinning only FEX link must be Port-Channel FEX ports are L2 switchports or native L3 routed interfaces L2 FEX ports are STP “edge” ports run BPDUGuard -> not switch could be connected to the FEX port FEX configuration Enable FEX feature: on N5K:...
Nexus Virtual Device Contexts (VDCs) vitualize physical hardware (like contexts in ASA) also vitualize control plane protocols. Separate control plane per VDC (vlan 10 in VDC 1 is not vlan 10 in VDC 2) Each VDC has its own: Management plane Control plane Data plane Why use VDC: multiple logical roles (Core & Distribution on the same box) VDCs as a managed service to customers lab enviroment for later production use some features can not co-exist in the same VDC (OTV and SVIs) VDC limitations:...
NX-OS supports aliases “cli alias name <name of alias> <command>” conf t cli alias name wr copy run star** => can use “wr” to save config NX-OS also supports multiple commands aliases. Use “;” as separator: conf t cli alias name commit end ; copy run start ; copy running-config bootflash:///$(SWITCHNAME).$(TIMESTAMP.cfg IOS range command CTRL+0 => clear the screen Tab to complete the command Admins of efault VDC can verify or save config in all VDCs: show run vdc-all copy run start vdc-all NX-OS has checkpoints - save well known working config before the maintenance window start....