AVE stability in production

[Harold13336]

Looking to get some feedback on implementing Cisco AVE in production.  Is this working well or has is been the source of issues affecting production traffic.  We are looking to move to production with this product but VMware does not support this solution.  Wanting to see how well this is working for other Cisco AVE customers.

[Robert Burns · Accepted solution]

I work with a few AVE customers (I'm Cisco) that have been very happy with AVE.  Their primary use case and benefit they love is around the VXLAN support.  Having to plumb one single VLAN (infra) to their hosts greatly simplifies their deployments.  One of them uses the AVE to get around a VLAN max limitation of HP Virtual connect which as avoided them having to rip & replace their compute.   Would love to hear the experience from others in the community.

In response to the "Support" concern - it's correct VMware will not help you if you run into AVE issues.  For any network-related issues, Cisco TAC would be your first stop.  We are more than versed on VMware and will fully support you.  It's important to understand very clearly that the AVE does not "violate" anything on your Hosts by running it.  VMM integration uses the same public APIs as their own clients.  There's nothing proprietary we're doing in that regards.  There's also a scare tactic VMware will whisper to customers telling them that AVE hasn't been developed through their Partner Program.   Think of it this way, when you use ansible modules to build an automation framework with vSphere modules, do you need to be listed as a certified partners? The answer is no. The partner program is when you build a solution that requires VMware engineering to take a look at what you’re doing in the context of a large number of hooking points to their API. Our solution is using an opensource c++ library with maybe like 10-20 functions to automate vSphere. 

There’s no need for us to be a certified partner for the AVE.

Long of the short, is don't let support concerns dissuade you from the AVE.

Robert

[Considering-AVE]

@Robert BurnsThanks for the detailed response Robert.

We are also looking at AVE to get around the VLAN limits on HP Virtual connect using SUS Mode. We currently use AVS but with vSphere 6.5 becoming end of support next year we need an alternative.

Any gotchas we should consider prior to embarking on this migration? Also is there any news on when AVE will release support for vSphere 7.0?

Thanks

[Robert Burns]

Its not so much the AVE that is bound to vSphere versions but ACI version.  AVE is simply a user-space VM, no longer embedded in the vsphere kernel, so there are less vmware dependencies for it.  ACI version 4.2(4o), 4.2(5) and 5.0(2) are supported with vSphere 7.  You can refer to the compatibility matrix here which will give you the complementing min. AVE versions to support those ACI releases: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/Website/datacenter/aci/virtualization/matrix/virtmatrix.html 

As for the migration process, its pretty well documented.  Dont see too many issues if you follow it closely.

Robert

[Considering-AVE]

Thanks for the response @Robert Burns much appreciated.

Great to know we can use vSphere 7. I will start planning for that for our final state once we have transitioned from AVS to AVE and removed our vSphere 6.5U1 dependency.

Thanks