No EPGs are deployed on a PortChannel used for VMM Domain, and wrong Mgmt IP is received over LLDP/CDP

[jose.tamayo.segarra]

Hello,

We are still fighting to finish the integration of UCS + VMWare + Cisco ACI.

We have been working hard and now we find a bit of a surprise:

The Fabric Interconnects, 2 of them, are linked via VPCs to a pair of ACI Leafs. All is fine, the Port channel is up at both ends. They have the same parameters in their Interface Profiles, no difference; they use the same VLAN Pool and AAEP. We use LLDP and not CDP (we already tried changing this, no success). So, all is fine, when we deploy manually the EPGs by Static Ports, all EPGs are deployed on both port channels. But using VMM WMware, after associating the AppProfiiles to the VMM Domain, no EPG is deployed on one of the Port Channels, but all EPGs are deployed on the other. So, when we shut the ports of the working port-channel, the EPGs are deployed nowhere.

FI_A  >-----------> Leaf 101

         >-----|   |---> Leaf 101

                    |   |

                    |--|---> Leaf 102

        >--------|

FI_B >------------->Leaf 102

Either we are missing something obvious, or this is a strange case.

We have tried these solutions, proposed from these bug report: https://bst.cloudapps.cisco.com/bugsearch/bug/CSCve06658

Has anyone experienced something similar? Any advice or important configuration we have missed?

Thansk for your time reading this, and many more for your comments and suggestions.

[jose.tamayo.segarra · Accepted solution]

Actually, it ended up being something really simple:

When using DVS, we selected the 'immediate' resolution. The EPGs (and VLANs) are deployed on the ports where, via CDP or LLDP, the Fabric Interconnect are known (and behind, the ESXi servers). As only of the FI was presenting the complete CDP/LLDP information, that was the only place where the EPGs/Vlans got deployed. Did not matter CDP/LLDP, one of the FI was not presenting its Mgmt Ip on the CDP/LLDP Information.

Options:

 * Use the 'pre-provision' resolution method on our EPGs associated with the VMM Domain. This deploys the EPGs no matter the discovery, just everywhere.

 * Reboot the FIs (in an ordered and controlled fashion) and after that both showed complete LLDP/CDP information, WITH the mgmt IP. While still using the 'immediate' resolution, the fact of having proper information over CDP/LLDP got all the EPGs/Vlans deployed on all ports.

The sympthoms were:

 * No EPGs/Vlans deployed on the ports where there was a FI that did not show the Mmgt IP

 * An obvious fault on ACI saying that the mgmt IP of an un-managed node was missing

The solution:

Reboot orderly the FIs.