Does ACI support a VXLAN Tunnel between Leaf(Leaves) and VMware-vDS, and MS-vSwtich?

[moyeonlee]

Hi Experts,

I have a quick question about Normalized Forwarding of ACI Fabric.

Does ACI support a VXLAN Tunnel between Leaf(Leaves) and VMware-vDS, and MS-vSwtich? Otherwise any plan to provide that function in the future?

If there is no function and plan How is Normalized Forwarding possible with VXLAN headers that are generated by each Hypervisor? Of course I know it's possible for a VM on ESXi to communicate with another VMs on Hper-V without VXLAN but I just focus on Normalized Forwarding between Multi-Hypervisor.

Or If AVSs are implemented on ESXi and Hyper-V repectively, is it possible to make a VXLAN Tunnel between Leaf(Leaves) and AVSs on ESXi and Hyper-V? And what is a example of that usage?

Thanks in advance.

Paul 

[dpita]

Hello Paul, 

Yes, the AVS can use VXLAN encapsulation up to the port group in vCenter. The AVS can operate in two modes with VXLAN enabled, the first is similar to how a FEX behaves, all traffic is forwarded to the Leaf, no local switching. The second mode supported by the AVS is intra-EPG forwarding, that is, traffic local to a portgroup or EPG is forwarded locally on the AVS. I hope this helps a bit Paul.

Have a nice day, 

Daniel

[Muhammad Anser Khan]

Hi Paul,

As I understand, ACI Leaf to the VMware-vDS is still vlan so no tunnel for VXLAN. When we integrate Vcenter with the ACI, We define the vlan range for the traffic from VM-ware-vDS to map EPG to a VMware ESXi port group. 

For the MS-vSwitch, As It support OpFlex agent could act as VTEP but not part of the fabric. But I am not sure about this. 

As AVS is part of the fabric so It will act as a VTEP (VXLAN Tunnel between Leaf(Leaves) and AVSs)

But what is the benefit are you looking? Traffic normalization is still there because Traffic within the fabric is encapsulated as VXLAN. External VLAN/VXLAN/NVGRE tags are mapped at ingress to an internal VXLAN tag.

Note:the VLAN ID has local significance for the leaf node

Regards,
Anser