So I have two questions here that are interrelated regarding storage and unified computing in a nexus 7k environment, I’ll focus on the UC portion for now but feel free to chime in on the storage concern as well.
The way we have it set up today is physical separation of networks (e.g. DMZ and DIST/Access). The virtual servers have separate physical connections to each switch, so say port 1-4 go to corporate switch and 5-8 go to DMZ switch (no overlapping VLANs)... this allows us to trunk DMZ VLANs over ports 1-4 and Corp VLANs on 5-8 and assign vNICs to vservers accordingly, which of course allows us to build servers with one foot in the DMZ and one in corporate (load balancers, proxies etc…). The planned topology is a pair of 7009s divided up into 3 VDCs. Core, DMZ and Distribution/Access while rolling out new UCS (w/ 6120XPs) and NetApps (3070s). We want to take full advantage of vPCs and vDCs and unified fabric.
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around end host vs. switch mode. So I see the preferred design is end host mode and I’d obviously like to take advantage of that but I have the requirement to connect UCS to two different vDCs (DMZ and Corp) to have the functionality I have today. So I understand that UCS in end host mode will only choose a single uplink to receive broadcasts. Is this true even when you have two vPC domains (A & B), 4 different vPCs (1,2 in VPC dom A, and 3,4 in VPC dom B for example), receiving different sets of VLANs and are on physically separate ports going to different vDCs? Is my only alternative here to configure UCS in switch mode?
Another question... Is my idea of creating separate VDCs to segment network tiers (Core,Dist,Access) commonplace and a good practice? We do not have a large network… We already have a collapsed core, dist, access today using 6509s. My idea here would be to purchase 1 M1 10G line card and divide that among the VDCs solely to use as my L3 uplinks to the core. Then purchase a bunch of F1s to facilitate distribution uplinks out to 2K FEXs spread around my server room that would sit on top of the cabinets.
So my model would look something like the following (high level)… Note, all of the the Nexus in a picture are the same pair. The Netapp and VServer are also the same chassis. The second picture is how I would physically divide up the VDCs amongst the line cards.
As for the storage portion, I’d be looking to create a SAN within the DMZ and one within the Corporate VDC. And with a single NetApp, I’d have some ports going to DMZ SAN A/B and other ports (in different VLANs/VSANs) going to Corp SAN A/B.
PS... I'd only have a single Nexus pair in the infrastructure for now... No MDS, no 5Ks etc...
Thanks in advance...
