Fabric Extenders and vPC

[Marius Gunnerud]

I have read a few documents that say it is possible to set up FEX's with redundant links to two different Nexus 5000 and put them in a vPC.  Is this true?  if it is possible which of the Nexus switches would the configuration be made on?

Is this possible with the Nexus 7000?

Any comments and links to documentation would be greatly appreciated.

[stephen.ehlas]

Nice design guide here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9670/design_guide_c07-625857.pdf

[Marius Gunnerud]

Thanks for the link.  after a quick glance through the guide, it doesn't look like having redundant links to two Nexus 7000 would be possible.  correct me if I am wrong please.

[stephen.ehlas]

Hi Marius

Maybe i have missunderstood you. You want to connect a nexus fex to two upstream nexus7000 yes?

Like this:

N7K-------------N7k

     \             /

      \           /

        \       /

          N2k

[Marius Gunnerud]

That is correct.  And have that link bundled in an vPC.

[stephen.ehlas]

See Pg4 of the guide.

I would strongly recmmend that you read the guide from top to bottom. It has alot of good info, as well as some gotcha's

[Steve Fuller]

Hi Marius,

it is possible to set up FEX's with redundant links to two different Nexus 5000 and put them in a vPC.  Is this true?  if it is possible which of the Nexus switches would the configuration be made on?

You are correct that a single FEX can be connected to a pair of Nexus 5000. When doing this the configuration must be applied to both Nexus 5K. There's a discussion on some of the pro's and cons of doing this in the forum post N2K dual homing to N5K final sentence.

Is this possible with the Nexus 7000?

Dual homing FEX to Nexus 7000 is not currently supported. See the forum post DualHoming 2248TP-E to N7K for more details.

Regards