Cisco Nexus 9300 and Multicast NLB configuration question - Are there any downtime considerations?

[AlexPi]

Hello All,

I have the requirement to enable load balancing for our MS Exchange environment on our Nexus switches:

Nexus9000 93180YC-EX chassis

NXOS: version 9.2(1)

So as per the guide that Cisco provides we have configured static ARP entries that map the unicast IP addresses to multicast MAC addresses in the IP address multicast range and have configured static MAC address-table entries that point to the interfaces connected to the NLB servers.

Now I need to apply/add:

1. Config for MAC-based Layer 2 multicast lookup in the VLAN:

vlan configuration XYZ

layer-2 multicast lookup mac

2. Enable the switch to support Multicast Mode:

hardware profile multicast nlb

Taking in consideration that this is a live device and that VLAN XYZ is a production VLAN, applying the confign of point 1 and 2, will it cause any outage or downtime?

Thanks,

Alex.
 

[jesper_petersen]

Hi Alex
Did you ever get to implement this?
I'm thinking in particular for the "hardware profile multicast nlb" command?
There is no documentation for that specific command.

[AlexPi]

Hey Jesper,

The command is referenced as a prerequisite under:

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus9000/sw/93x/multicast/b-cisco-nexus-9000-series-nx-os-multicast-routing-configuration-guide-93x/b-cisco-nexus-9000-series-nx-os-multicast-routing-configuration-guide-93x_chapter_01001.htm...

It is not supported by all Nexus switches and even for the ones is supported under I think it is available only on certain NX-OS releases.

FYI, we did implement this with no issues.