Nexus 1kv - Primary VSM on Nexus 1010 and secondary on a VM

[zykobot]

Hi All,

I've got a customer who is going to deploy the Nexus 1010 at two different sites. Unfortunately the secondary site won't be up for a number of months.

Question - is it possible to run the Nexus 1000v with a primary VSM on the Nexus 1010 and the secondary VSM on a virtual machine?

Thanks,

Nick.

[lwatta · Accepted solution]

First you cannot split 1010s to different sites with the current code. It's unsupported configuration and you run the chance have overwritting configurations in the case of an extended split-brain scenario. We are working to support that config but with current code you should not implement it.

Splitting the VSMs across 1010 and ESX will work but this is also not supported. If you can run everything on ESX for now thats what I would do. We do support a migration from ESX to 1010 and vice versa but we do not support long term split of the VSMs.

Now if you want to split VSMs across datacenters its not supported with ESX or 1010. However our next release of Nexus 1000V code will support split of VSMs on ESX. This version will be 2.1 and should be out soon. For the 1010s I'm not sure when we are going to support split across DCs. Most likely it will also be with the next code rev but I'm not sure of the target release. I will try to find out for you.

louis

[zykobot]

Thank you Louis!

I guess we'll probably go VSMs on vSphere for now. If we go down that route, can I still use the Nexus 1010 for VSG etc?

Nick

[lwatta]

Nick,

Yes you can still continue to put the VSG on the 1010s.

I did find out on Friday that it looks like there will be a release of new 1010 code about he same time as the Nexus 1000V 2.1 code that will allow for split Datacenters. So very soon we will support a split DC config with the 1010.

louis

[zykobot]

Thanks Louis, your assistance has been invaluable.

Just had a quick chat to the client, what is deemed as separate sites?

In reality this client has two sites that are 300meters apart, they're connected by a vPC between Nexus 7k and Nexus 5k switches with Layer 2 spanning across. Would running the VSMs on the Nexus 1010s in this setup be supported?

Nick.

[lwatta]

We would consider those different sites because the 1010s would not be in the same physical location. I'm assuming you are using something like dark fibre between the sites? If there was a cut you would end up with a prolonged outage. You would have to be very careful to make sure you only make changes on one VSM and 1010. Assuming you are aware of the outage I would power off the secondaries and leave them down until the link comes back up.

We would still consider it a not supported configuration.

[zykobot]

Hi Louis,

I noticed Nexus 1000v Release 4.2(1)SV2(1.1) is out, does this version support cross site Nexus 1010s?

Thanks,

Nick

[lwatta]

Nick,

Yes. With the new 2.1 VSM code and the latest 1010 and 1110 code you can split the 1x10s into different DCs. You need to have L2 extension across the sites and latency needs to be in the 10ms range.

louis

[zykobot]

OK, that shouldn't be a problem.

How about cross infrastructure support.. ie.

Primary VSM sits on Nexus 1010 at site 1

Secondary VSM sits on a VM in a vSphere environment at site 2?

Nick