Ask the Expert: Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches and FabricPath

[Monica Lluis]

This session will provide an opportunity to learn and ask questions about Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches and FabricPath technology.

 
Cisco Fabricpath technology on the Nexus 7000 switches introduces new capabilities and design options that allow network operators to create Ethernet fabrics that maximize bandwidth availability, provide design flexibility, and simplify and cost-reduce network and application deployment and operation. Fabricpath leverages many of the best characteristics of traditional Layer 2 and Layer 3 technologies, combining them into a new control-plane and data-plane implementation that combines the plug-and-play deployment model of a bridge Spanning Tree environment with the stability, re-convergence characteristics, and ability to leverage multiple parallel paths typical of a Layer 3 routed environment. The result is a escalable, flexible, and highly-available Ethernet fabric suitable for the most demanding Data Center environments.

Ask questions from Monday, March 7 to March 18, 2016

Featured Experts

Chandan Sarkar is a customer support engineer in High-Touch Technical Services (HTTS). He has over 9 years of experience in the industry working with large enterprises and telecom networks. His areas of expertise include Cisco Catalyst 2000, 3000, 4000, 6500, and Cisco Nexus 7000,Nexus 5000, Nexus 3000, Nexus 2000, UCS, and MDS SAN Switches. Sarkar holds several certifications including CCNP, VPC and other expert level certifications from Citrix, Extreme Networks, Nortel ERS, and Infoblox. He is currently working to obtain a CCIE in Data Center. He graduated with a MS degree on Systems Engineerin from Birla Institute Technology Science (BITS Pilani)

Suresh  Vs is a Customer Support Engineer in High-Touch Technical Services (HTTS) at Cisco Bangalore, India. He has over 11 years of industry experience working with large Enterprise and Service Provider networks. He has been working with HTTS from past 4 years and supporting LAN Switching and Data center Products. His areas of expertise include Cisco Catalyst 2000, 3000, 4000, 6500 and Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches. Suresh holds a Bachelor's of Sciences in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Madras University. He has these certifications: CCNA, CCNP, CCIE Data Center (# 46658).

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[Suresh Vinayagam Subramanian]

Hi ,

Fabricpath is not supported on the Nexus 9000 series switches.But Nexus 9000 supports VXLAN based design . you can find more details in below link .

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/guide-c07-730115.html#_Toc373351519

Thanks,

VS.Suresh .

[kthned]

Thanks Suresh for your answer...The document highlights the replacement of 7k to 9k without need of re-wiring.

Actually we have a 7K to 5K sping-leaf setup with fabricpath...

If a customer need to have ACI in his DC than does it mean that he has to get rid of fabricpath and use VxLAN instead...   

[Suresh Vinayagam Subramanian]

Hi ,

With Nexus 9k in ACI mode along with VxLan, the design more or less is same (Spine/leaf design), the benefit you achieve would also be same.

Thanks,

VS.Suresh 

[abhishek4cisco]

Hello Chandan/Suresh,

I am newbie to Nexus, our customer has implemented Fabricpath in their network. I am handling it, but never had the chance to troubleshoot it. Could you please provide some good documents or links or if possible, list of commands which helps to troubleshoot the fabric path ?
I am also curious to know if Fabricpath is only supported in Nexus switches or another switch also support Fabricpath ?

Thank you.

[chsarkar]

Hello,

There are many good documents on Cisco Fabricpath ( troubleshooting & operations ). Below are such links :

https://www.ciscolive.com/online/connect/sessionDetail.ww?SESSION_ID=5961

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/operations/farbric_path/602_n1_1/Cisco_Nexus_5000_6000_NX-OS_FabricPath_Operations_Guide.pdf

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/white_paper_c11-687554.html

Below CCO link is good one if you looking for design guide.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-5000-series-switches/guide_c07-690079.html

Q2 - I am also curious to know if Fabricpath is only supported in Nexus switches or another switch also support Fabricpath ?

Ans : Fabricpath is supported on Cisco Nexus series switches.

There are various troubleshooting tools which you can use for Fabricpath Troubleshooting, that depends on the situation and use cases, however below are certain list of clis to initiate troubleshoot Fabricpath :

Interfaces in FP mode
cli : show fabricpath isis interface [brief]
•ISIS adjacencies
cli : show fabricpath isis adjacency [detail]
•Root information for the trees
cli : show fabricpath isis topology summary
•RPF information for the trees
cli : show fabricpath isis trees
•OIFs for the trees
cli : show fabricpath mroute
•Affinity to Ftags
cli : show fabricpath isis database detail
cli : show system internal m2rib ftag

Regards, Chandan

[abhishek4cisco]

Thanks!!

[rajanthanki25]

Hi Chandan/Suresh

Recently I faced below issue in my Nexus 7010 switch. I want to configure an EEM script or a RMON script. With RMON I believe there has to be MIBs to be configured.

How can I find a MIB for my error log:

HOSTNAME / cisco Nexus7000 C7010 (10 Slot) Chassis ("Supervisor module-1X")

2016 Mar  8 23:50:05.629 HOSTNAME %MODULE-4-MOD_WARNING: Module 5 (serial: S NO.)reported warning due to X-bar Interface ASIC Error in device 71 (device error 0xc471822f)

2016 Mar  8 23:52:46.120 HOSTNAME %DIAGCLIENT-STANDBY-2-EEM_ACTION_HM_SHUTDOWN: Test <StandbyFabricLoopback> has been disabled as a part of default EEM action

2016 Mar  8 23:52:46.121 HOSTNAME %DEVICE_TEST-STANDBY-2-STANDBY_LOOPBACK_TEST_FAIL: Module 6 has failed test StandbyFabricLoopback 10 times on Xbar 1 due to error Packets dropped at Fabric

==========================================================================

2016 Feb 12 15:03:39.341 HOSTNAME %SYSMGR-SLOT3-2-SERVICE_CRASHED: Service "lamira_usd" (PID 2176) hasn't caught signal 6 (core will be saved).

2016 Feb 12 15:03:54.248 HOSTNAME %MODULE-2-MOD_DIAG_FAIL: Module 3 (Serial number: S NO.) reported failure due to Service on linecard had a hap-reset in device DEV_SYSMGR (device error 0x17e)

Can you please tell me what would be the SNMP MIBs for creating EEM/RMON scripts?

Even would be great if you can write out the EEM/RMON scripts.

[chsarkar]

Hello Rajan,

I am sharing the Cisco ftp link to you for the list of mibs supportd in NXOS.

ftp://ftp.cisco.com/pub/mibs/supportlists/nexus7000/Nexus7000MIBSupportList.html

For the below log:
2016 Mar 8 23:50:05.629 HOSTNAME %MODULE-4-MOD_WARNING: Module 5 (serial: S NO.)reported warning due to X-bar Interface ASIC Error in device 71 (device error 0xc471822f)

You can find the error desc by the cli : " show system error-id 0xc471822f)"

2016 Mar 8 23:52:46.120 HOSTNAME %DIAGCLIENT-STANDBY-2-EEM_ACTION_HM_SHUTDOWN: Test <StandbyFabricLoopback> has been disabled as a part of default EEM action

2016 Mar 8 23:52:46.121 HOSTNAME %DEVICE_TEST-STANDBY-2-STANDBY_LOOPBACK_TEST_FAIL: Module 6 has failed test StandbyFabricLoopback 10 times on Xbar 1 due to error Packets dropped at Fabric

For the above, you can set EEM script and use Syslog as the publisher.

Below is a good document for EEM config to monitor syslog Messages.
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/sw/5_x/nx-os/system_management/configuration/guide/sm_nx_os_cg/sm_eem_events_and_examples.html#wp1024660

This forum is particularly on Troubleshooting Fabricpath and its operations.

I would request you to post this question on the below right forum :

https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/6016/lan-switching-and-routing

Also you can raise a TAC case to check if there are any known related bug to the code you are running on your Nexus 7000 switches

Thanks
Chandan

[UniWAQ]

Hello Team,

We are using Cisco Nexus 7000x4/5000x4(2 in each DC with VDC )  for fabric path  and VPC+ in  core block. Nexus 5k/fexes for access block.  Cisco 6509 is using for WAN connectivity.

Now we wants to replace all  Nexus 7000 from Core for cost cutting issues and simplifying network management.

As per my understanding we could use Cisco 5K with routing module for core part and it could be connected to existing 6509 for WAN connections.

As alternative we could use one Cisco Nexus 7K in core with existing FP/VPC+ and throw out one Nexus 7K from each data center. 

Anyone could give me tehcnical opinon and thanks in advance.

WAHEED