requirements for upstream physical switch

[asigra123]

I am confused about the physical requirements for the implementation of the Cisco Nexus 1000V. I have 2 VMware clusters one ESXi 4.0 update 2 and one ESXi 4.1. Each ESX host has 4 NICs connected to a D-Link layer 2 physical switch and each has one vSwitch with all the physical NICS attached to it. Is this enough to implement a Cisco Nexus 1000V?

Thank you very much for your help.

[abbharga]

Hi,

The following deployment guide might help you with some of your implementation / deplyoment queries:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9902/guide_c07-556626.html

./Abhinav

[asigra123]

That document is so general so it's useless. I would like to know the specific requirements for the physical upstream switch. Is this layer 2 or layer 3?

Thank you for your help.

[abbharga]

The upstream switch can be a L2 switch.

[asigra123]

My Layer 2 switch does not support VLANs. Should I configure in a special way the uplinks or any other component?

Thank you for your answer.

[ryan.lambert]

You obviously won't be able to tag VLANs on the physical VMNIC uplinks, but a basic layer2 switch that doesn't support VLANS (and by proxy, STP) should still suffice for untagged connectivity to the vSphere hosts.