Vmware load balancing with Nexus 1000v

[ADAman]

With the vmware switches  vDS or vSS, I see many designs are using the Active-passive approach for uplink NIC-teaming, i.e one vmnic is active going to fabric A, and one vmnic is passive going to fabric B. This is configured in vSphere.

Se this article: http://bradhedlund.com/2010/09/15/vmware-10ge-qos-designs-cisco-ucs-nexus/

Is it correct we cannot set up such a scheme with the 1000V? All the network config is done on the 1000V, and as far as I know, we can only setup the uplink in these 3 modes:

1. LACP 2. vPC-Host Mode 3. vPC-Host Mode with Mac Pinning

and all of them are "active-active" based.

Message was edited by: Atle Dale

[Robert Burns]

Atle,

The only uplink channeling method supported with the 1000v + UCS is Mac Pinning.  You can definately make use of all uplinks in this regard.

Regards,

Robert

[ADAman]

ok, but MAC-pinning is a sort of active-active, isn't it?

[Robert Burns · Accepted solution]

Yes.  All uplinks are used.  Each VM virtual interface is pinned to one of the uplinks.  If one uplink should fail, all pinned interfaces get dynamically re-pinned to remaining uplinks.  A mac address will only be see on a single interface at a time.  This is how MAC pinning avoids STP loops.

Robert

[ADAman]

ok, and it is built-in failover-redundancy, so this is pretty good. Do you know why Cisco does not support a setup with UCS and active-mode (LACP)? Or if it will be supported in the future, because clearly LACP is better, because of better bandwidt usage.

[Trevor Roberts Jr · Accepted solution]

Hello Atle,

UCS C-Series connected directly to a switch would support LACP for the 1000V.

With the B-Series and UCSM-mode C-Series, there is no switching logic built-in to the Fabric Interconnects when running in End-Host Mode.  So, the Nexus 1000V would not be able to negotiate LACP properly with them.

I hope that helps,

Trevor

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

If my answers have been helpful in any way, please rate accordingly.  Thanks!

[mwronkow]

You may want to consult the "Nexus 1000v Port-Channel Best Practices" document for topologies and sample configurations.