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ITMan01
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What's the difference between Cisco OTV and VXLAN?

Hi all,

As I know, both VXLAN and OTV are technologies designed to extend Layer2 network (encapsulate MAC in IP). May I knwo the difference between them? Especially from the design purpose perspective. When would we choose OTV and vice versa.

thanks a lot!

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chriswahl
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May I knwo the difference between them? Especially from the design purpose perspective. When would we choose OTV and vice versa.

There have been many, many posts on the Internet on this topic. For starters, Scott Lowe has written a good "vs" article here -

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2011/12/22/otv-and-vxlan-layer-3-connectivity-compared/

As OTV is limited to Cisco technology, your design is limited to a Nexus 7000 if you go that path. A good whitepaper on OTV can be found here -

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/DCI/whitepaper/DCI3_OTV_Intro_WP.pd...

Where VXLAN is a standard (that Cisco is also involved in). Some details on VXLAN here -

http://www.borgcube.com/blogs/2011/11/vxlan-primer-part-1/

VCDX #104 (DCV, NV) ஃ WahlNetwork.com ஃ @ChrisWahl ஃ Author, Networking for VMware Administrators

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chriswahl
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May I knwo the difference between them? Especially from the design purpose perspective. When would we choose OTV and vice versa.

There have been many, many posts on the Internet on this topic. For starters, Scott Lowe has written a good "vs" article here -

http://blog.scottlowe.org/2011/12/22/otv-and-vxlan-layer-3-connectivity-compared/

As OTV is limited to Cisco technology, your design is limited to a Nexus 7000 if you go that path. A good whitepaper on OTV can be found here -

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/solutions/Enterprise/Data_Center/DCI/whitepaper/DCI3_OTV_Intro_WP.pd...

Where VXLAN is a standard (that Cisco is also involved in). Some details on VXLAN here -

http://www.borgcube.com/blogs/2011/11/vxlan-primer-part-1/

VCDX #104 (DCV, NV) ஃ WahlNetwork.com ஃ @ChrisWahl ஃ Author, Networking for VMware Administrators
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ITMan01
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Many thx, all are good readings!

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vGerry
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Hi,

yes about links and just to reminder that VXLAN are now only supported to Cisco Nexus 1000v and in the distributed swtich 5.1. OTV is supported only in the Nexus 7000 and can bring between data center up to 500 vlan.

VXLAN are different from vlan they uses the metod os the tunnel UDP:  L2-IP-UDP-VXLAN-L2

CCNP-v6/ JNCIS-FWV/ CCIP/ CCDA/ JNCIA-SP/ CCNA-SEC/ CCNA-V/ CCNA-RS http://communities.vmware.com/people/vGerry/blog
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ITMan01
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Recently, I got a new concept as TRILL, it looks similar with OTV and VXLAN, do you have any idea about that?

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