Nexus 1000v UCS Manager and Cisco UCS M81KR

[Santi Cuni]

Hello everyone

I am confused about how works the integration between N1K and UCS Manager:

First question:

If two VMs on different ESXi and different VEM but in the same VLAN,would like to talk each other, the data flow between them is managed from the upstream switch( in this case UCS Fabric Inteconnect), isn'it?

I created a Ethernet uplink port-profile on N1K in switch port mode access(100), I created a vEthernet port-profile for the VM in switchport mode access(100) as well. In the Fabric Interconnect I created a vNIC profile for the physical NICs of ESXi(where there are the VMs). Also I created the vlan 100(the same in N1K)

Second question: With the configuration above, if I include in the vNIC profile the vlan 100 (not as native vlan) only, the two VMs can not ping each other. Instead if I include in the vNIC profile only the defaul vlan(I think it is the vlan 1) as native vlan evereything works fine. WHY????

Third question: How it works the tagging vlan on Fabric interconnectr and also in N1K.

I tried to read differnt documents, but I did not understand.

Thanks                 

[Daniel Laden]

This document may help...

Best Practices in Deploying Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches on Cisco UCS B and C Series Cisco UCS Manager Servers

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9902/white_paper_c11-558242.html

If two VMs on different ESXi and different VEM but in the same  VLAN,would like to talk each other, the data flow between them is  managed from the upstream switch( in this case UCS Fabric Inteconnect),  isn'it?

-Yes.  Each ESX host with the VEM will have one or more dedicated NICs for the VEMs to communicate with the upstream network.  These would be your 'type ethernet' port-profiles.  The ustream network would need to bridge the vlan between the two physicall nics.

Second question: With the configuration above, if I include in the vNIC  profile the vlan 100 (not as native vlan) only, the two VMs can not ping  each other. Instead if I include in the vNIC profile only the defaul  vlan(I think it is the vlan 1) as native vlan evereything works fine.  WHY????

-  The N1K port profiles are switchport access making them untagged.  This would be the native vlan in ucs.  If there is no native vlan in the UCS configuration, we do not have the upstream networking bridging the vlan.

Third question: How it works the tagging vlan on Fabric interconnectr and also in N1K.

-  All ports on the UCS are effectively trunks and you can define what vlans are allowed on the trunk as well as what vlan is passed natively or untagged.  In N1K, you will want to leave your vEthernet port profiles as 'switchport mode access'.  For your Ethernet profiles, you will want them to be 'switchport mode trunk'.  Use an used used vlan as the native vlan.  All production vlans will be passed from N1K to UCS as tagged vlans.

Thank You,

Dan Laden

PDI Helpdesk

http://www.cisco.com/go/pdihelpdesk