Nexus 1000V, 4K and 5K

[WILLIAM STEGMAN]

I'm looking over the deployment guide for 1000Vs, and am not clear on the design.  If I have a Nexus 4k connecting to a Nexus 5k, how does the Nexus 1000V fit?  What I'm seeing is that typically a vpc is built between the Nexus 1k and a clustered upstream switch, such as Nexus 5ks, or VSS with 6500s.  However, if I already have a vpc between a Nexus 4k and a pair of 5ks, what affect does adding 1ks to the configuration have?  Or is the idea to move the vpc back to the 1000Vs instead of the between the 4k and 5ks?  Or perhaps is using a 1000V more suited when you have blades that are pass through modules where each blade has its own NIC or there are blade switches (non Nexus 4k) in the chassis? 

thank you,

Bill

[Marwan ALshawi]

hi bill

mainly there are two options

first option if to use the N1K with a clustered up stream switches as you mentioned vPC or VSS

in this case all what you need form the N1K/ESXi host is to use a normal portchannel and multihome th eport channel links to both of these switches ( this is a recommended solution if applicable )

option two is to use non-clustered switches like in your case the two 4K switches as the upstream switches with the N1K

and in this case you can use vPC host mode where the N1K with new releases uses mac-pining to chose uplink subgroup within the port channel

see below:

[WILLIAM STEGMAN]

So in my case with the non-clustered Nexus 4ks, I would be creating a vpc on the Nexus 1ks on the links that lead to the host, or ESX server?

thank you

[Marwan ALshawi · Accepted solution]

yes

called vPC host mode

check out this link

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus1000/sw/4_0/port_profile/configuration/guide/portprof_1overview.html#wp1063966

hope this help

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