nexus 1000v

[Virtugirl]

Hey Guys,

Hope this is the right place to post.

Im currently working on a inheritied design to put in a ESXi 5 solution with Nexus 1000v and a backend of a Cisco UCS 5180.

I have a few questions to ask about what people do in the real world regarding this type of set up :

In oder to use the Nexus 1000v - Do I need vCenter ?  The reason I ask is that it wasnt included on the original kit list.  I would say that we need virtual center for HA and vMotion but the clients wants to know if I can design what we have licenses for now and implement vCenter at a later date.

Ive been doing some reading regarding the Nexus 1000v as Ive never designed a soluton with one before.  Cisco recommend that 2 VSM's be implemented for redundancy.  Is this correct ?  Do I need a license for each VSM ?  I'm also assuming to meet this best practice I would need HA and vMoton and therefore vCenter ?

The VM's for the VSM's, can they sit inside the cluster ?

Thanks in Advance for any help.

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

In oder to use the Nexus 1000v - Do I need vCenter ? 

Yes - the Nexus 1000v is a type of ditributed virtual switch and it requires vcenetr

Ive been doing some reading regarding the Nexus 1000v as Ive never designed a soluton with one before.  Cisco recommend that 2 VSM's be implemented for redundancy.  Is this correct ?  Do I need a license for each VSM ?  I'm also assuming to meet this best practice I would need HA and vMoton and therefore vCenter ?

I am not sure about the VSMs but yes HA and vMotion are required as part of best practices

The VM's for the VSM's, can they sit inside the cluster ?

Yes they cane xist inside the cluster -

[Virtugirl]

Thanks for the quick reply