Nexus 7000 - Management best practice in multi-VDC environment

[rays]

Hello all, my topology includes an Admin VDC, a Core\Agg VDC and a Storage VDC for FCoE traffic. In the absence of a dedicated OOB Management switch, could I patch from an interface in the Core\Agg VDC to the Mgmt0 interface of the SUP2 and get access to mgmt0 IP of all VDCs? Or is an OOB management switch a necessity to manage this topology?  

Any information would be appreciated.

Kind regards

Rays

[richbarb]

Hello Rays,

The OOB interface is completly dedicated, there is no way to mix VDC internal interfaces with OOB traffic.

What you can do if you don't have a OOB network, is create a internal interface in each VDC to access the switch, although it works, this is not recommended, because if you have a data plane issue you can lose the management access.

Regards,

Richard.

[rays]

Thanks for the reply Richard. I understand the risk with not having an OOB network, thanks for that.

So without the OOB management network, are you saying I need a separate switch to which I can connect a physical interface from each VDC to, for management purposes? And to access the Storage and Admin VDC, would I connect the mgmt0 interfaces to the same switch? As i understand it you cannot allocate a physical i/f to the Admin VDC, so the only method is via console or mgmt0 interface...

Thanks for you're assistance...

Rays

[richbarb]

Hey Rays,

Is only one interface to all VDCs, is the same physical interface connected to the OOB management switch.

This is one of the few things that is shared among the VDCs.

So, the same mgmt physical interface with different ips to each VDC, putting all in the same network and you will access each of them separatelly.

Richard.