UCS Vmware 5.1 and Nexus 1000v setup

[JO BO]

Dear Team,

Please guide on the setup of UCS infra with Vmware5.1 and Nexus 1000v

2 Chasis 4 blade each= total 8 blades,2 FI

Steps that has to followed
a)No of Vlans that has to be created as per best practices for UCS and Vmware-whether on FI A and FI B
b)Points to be considered while creating service profile for each server-considering vmware Nexus environment
c)No of VNic and VHbas per server,IP,MAC,WWPN,WWNN etc pool lenght and best practices like to be created on FI A or FI B
d)On the Vmware side no of Lans to be considered (Mgmt,Data etc) on vswitch or distributed switch?-Steps to be performed for this
lan creation

What has to be done-step by step so that we do not miss out

Thanks and Regards
Jose

[Trevor Roberts Jr]

Hello Jose,

It is difficult to make specific recommendations without knowing your workloads.  It would be better for you and your team to first review the online resources below and then post to this topic if you have any leftover questions.

Most organizations that use the 1000V utilize a 2 vNIC setup.  The 1000V is capable of QoS in the virtual switch itself. So, there is no need to have multiple pairs of vNICs per server.

The number of vHBAs has no relation to 1000V, but most organizations are fine with the bandwidth of 2 vHBAs.

Make sure each vNIC and each vHBA are on different Fabrics: For Example, vNIC0 and vHBA0 are on Fabric A, and vNIC1 and vHBA1 are on Fabric B.

Do not enable Fabric Failover on your vNICs.  Although it is a supported capability, in the event of a failure, using this functionality with vSphere setups will place load on the FI CPU to support the re-mapping of VM traffic.  It is better to have a NIC on each Fabric instead.

Online Resources for Further Research:

There are a number of resources online that will answer the majority of questions that you have:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9902/guide_c07-704280.pdf

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/switches/ps9441/ps9902/white_paper_c11-558242.pdf

https://communities.cisco.com/community/technology/datacenter/nexus1000v/blog/2011/11/02/ucs-and-nexus-1000v-best-practices

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If my answers have been helpful in any way, please rate accordingly.  Check out my blog for useful vSphere & UCS tips: www.vmtrooper.com

[JO BO]

Thank you.. Trevor.. will definetly go through the above mentioned links,,