Dual-fabric migration

[Madura Malwatte]

I just want confirmation that dual-fabric design to multi-pod / multi-site is currently not supported. Is this correct? 

BRKACI-2125 shows this:

But from this link mentions "The Brownfield to Brownfield use case is only supported in this release if both Cisco APIC sites are deployed with the same configuration. Other Brownfield to Brownfield use cases will be deployed in a future Cisco ACI Multi-Site release."

So if both my APIC sites are not exactly the same configuration then there is no way to migrate to multi-site?

What about migrating to multi-pod?

At the moment the only real option to connect two fabrics together is either via: vPC, OTV or VXLAN via a L2/L3 DCI?

[Rick1776]

Correct, MSITE is super new. Later this year there will be more options. For MSITE you'll also have to take into consideration the Egress flows with GOLF devices.

For Multi-POD if you are running 3.1 and within 50ms you can stretch your APIC clusters.

MPOD is way more mature then MSITE.

[Madura Malwatte]

Is brownfield to brownfield multipod migration supported though?

[Nik Noltenius]

I don't exactly understand what you mean with "supported".

There is definitely no red button you can press and automagically your two separate fabric become a single one but of course you can get from two fabrics to a multi-pod scenario if you put the work into it.

A rough road-map would look like this:

- implement the IPN

- decide for one of your existing fabrics to become the base for the new multi-pod (fabric A), configure the IPN in this one

- decommission on Spine from the other fabric (fabric B), connect it to the IPN and re-discover in the base fabric

- do the same for a leaf

- start migrating endpoints from fabric B to this leaf in fabric A

- at some point decommission an re-discover more leaf- and spine-switches

- when fabric B is assimiliated completely you can expand the APIC cluster size of fabric A and re-install the APICs from fabric B

BRKACI-2508 gives an overview of "Converting an existing network to ACI" which describes the basic principles. I know it's a different thing but still the key takeaways apply to your scenario as well.

Kind regars,

Nik

[Rick1776]

Check this Youtube video out....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkvHuBAf4Q&list=PLoC81hSykIRc3zxiTQ-MQA_Bn5NsqZ_EM&index=3

[Rick1776]

For current ACI fabric to MSITE no. You would have to basically wipe the APIC's and start over again in the MSITE controller. There are options though in the VIDEO I sent in the other comment that could work. It's just a lot of up front work.