Nexus 1000v - Does this config make sense?

[piaroa]

Hello there,

I started deploying the Nexus 1000v to a 6 host cluster, all running vSphere 4.1 (vCenter and ESXi). The basic configuration, licensing etc is already completed, and so far no problems.

My doubts are regarding the actual creation of system-uplinks, port-profiles, etc. Basically I want to make sure I'm not making any mistakes in the way I want to set this up.

My current setup per host is like this with standard vSwitches:

vSwitch0: 2 pNICs active/active, with Management and vMotion vmkernel ports.

vSwitch1: 2 pNICs active/active, dedicated to a Storage vmkernel port

vSwitch2: 2 pNICs active/active for virtual machine traffic.

I was thinking of translating that to the Nexus 1000v like this:

system-uplink1 with 2 pNICs where I'll put Management and vMotion vmk ports

system-uplink2 with 2 pNICs for Storage vmk

system-uplink3 with 2 pNICs for VM traffic.

These three system-uplinks are global, right? Or do I need to set up three unique system-uplinks per host?. I thought that by doing 3 global uplinks would make things a lot easier since if I change something in an uplink, it will be pushed to all 6 hosts.

Also, I read somewhere that if I use 2 pNICs per system-uplink, then I need to set up a port-channel on our physical switches?

Right now the VSM has 3 different VLANs for mgmt, control and packet, I'd like to migrate those 3 port groups from the standard switch to the n1kv itself.

Also, when I migrated the Management port from SVS to N1Kv, the host complained that it has no management redundancy, even if the uplink1 where the mgmt port-profile is attached, has 2 pNICs added to it.

So what do you guys think? Also, any other recommended best practices are much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

[lwatta]

Yes port-profiles are global. So you create one port-profile and can assign many ESX hosts or VMs to that port-profile. You do NOT have to create one port-profile per ESX host.

Anytime you use more then one uplink per port-profile you must use a port-channel command in that port-profile. The simplest port-profile is vPC MAC pinning. All the load balancing in this mode is done on the VEM so it requires no upstream switch configuration.

You can use one VLAN for mgmt, control, and packet. We removed the restriction for each interface to have its own vlan. It is also supported to migrate all your connections from the vSwitch to the DVS. If you are new to NExus 1000V I would recommend starting with just your VM traffic and maybe VMOtion on the DVS and then as you grow comfortable migrate the rest of the traffic to the Nexus 1000V.

We have a lot of good documentation on Nexus 1000V at the below link.

https://www.myciscocommunity.com/community/products/nexus1000v

louis

[piaroa]

Ok, just to clarify:

- Port-profiles are global (vmkernel port for vmotion, nfs, mgmt, vm traffic). This would be the equivalent of port-groups on the standard vSwitches.

- System-uplinks are also global? should they be? > we are creating one system-uplink with 2 pNIC and portchannel per host per traffic.

So, esx1 would have 3 system-uplinks with 2 nics each and portchannel, one for mgmt, vmotion, one for storage and one for vm traffic. I was thinking of creating 3 system-uplinks per host.

Does that make sense?

If this post has been helpful/solved your issue, please mark the thread and award points as you see fit. Thanks!

[lwatta · Accepted solution]

Yes uplink port-profiles are global.

What you are proposing will work with one caveat. You cannot overlap a vlan between those uplinks. So if your management uplink will use vlan 100 and your VM data uplink also needs to use vlan 100 that will cause problems.

louis

[piaroa]

Overlapping VLANs will not be an issue, we don't re-use VLANs.

Thanks for the info!

If this post has been helpful/solved your issue, please mark the thread and award points as you see fit. Thanks!