Any mandatory config when adding additional spine to ACI?

[raugusti]

Apart from physical work involving installation and power up new spine switch plus cabling it with all leafs, is there any mandatory config needed on APIC side? I know we can add node id and specify OOB IP or some other things but I'm curious to learn what is the minimum config, if any, to bring new spine inside ACI.

[gkumark]

Hi Raugusti,

There is no specific configuration you need to do on the spine. Just physical cable the new spine, wait for it to be discovered by the fabric over LLDP and it will show up under fabric membership in GUI. Assign a node ID and name to register. Wait for it to get an IP assigned by the APIC. Thats all, your new spine is in fabric. 

Refer to https://supportforums.cisco.com/t5/data-center-documents/adding-new-leaf-spine-node-to-aci-fabric/ta-p/3216766 for the detailed steps to add a new spine. 

[raugusti]

Thanks Ganesh!

Is it possible that my ACI environment is not configured to assign IP to a new members of the fabric, i.e. that I have to do it manually? I'm assuming that we talk here about in-band IP. What about OOB IP for new switch?

[gkumark]

Hi Raugusti,

The IP I mentioned about in my previous post was the TEP IP which is assigned by the APIC DHCP pool. If you are talking about management IP, either inband or out of band, you need to manually assign this under the management tenant. Refer to https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/aci/apic/sw/kb/b_KB_Configuring_Static_Management_Access.html for steps to assign the management IP. 

Cheers

GK