Nexus 1000v Setup and Configuration

My environment:  Nexus1000v.4.0.4.SV1.3b, VMWare ESXi 4.1, vCenter 4.1

Nexus 1000v consists of VSM (control plane) and VEM (data plane).  VSM can run as a VM or in a standalone appliance.  In my setup I run it as a VM on one of my ESXi hosts.  The Nexus1000v software comes with both VSM and VEM within a zip file.

1. To install the VSM, locate the .ova file in the VSM folder.  In your vSphere client, click File > “Deploy OVF template”

2. During the deployment, you need to provide the following information:

• Control VLAN ID
• Packet VLAN ID
• Domain ID
• Management IP address

3. You can use the same vlan for control, packet and management, and do not place data traffic on this VLAN.  The wizard is quite straight forward so the details will not be covered here.

4. Next step is to create Nexus 1000v plug-in.  Browse the page http://vsm-ip-address and download the cisco_nexus1000v_extension.xml file

5. In vSphere Client, Plug-Ins menu, choose “Manage Plug-Ins”.  Click “Register Plug-In” and import the XML file downloaded from the VSM page.

6. Then connect your VSM to the vCenter

conf t

svs connection VC

protocol vmware-vim

remote ip address 1.2.3.4

vmware dvs datacenter-name panda-DC

connect

7. Then you can create system port-profile and data port-profile. 

port-profile type ethernet system-uplink
  vmware port-group
  switchport mode trunk
  switchport trunk allowed vlan all
  no shutdown
  system vlan 2010
  state enabled

port-profile type vethernet cciev-server
  vmware port-group
  switchport mode access
  switchport access vlan 100
  no shutdown
  state enabled

8. Next step is to install VEM, the easiest way is to do it via VMWare Update Manager.  In vSphere client > Update Manager > Patch Repository, click “Import Patch”, then choose the VEM module in the Nexus 1000v VEM folder.

9. Then create a new baseline.  Under Baseline and Groups, click create baselines.  Choose VEM under extensions. 

10.  You can now apply the baseline to the host.  In vSphere Client > Hosts and Clusters, choose the host you want to install VEM.  Click the Update Manager tab which is usually the last tab.  Click “Attach” to attach the baseline you’ve just created, then click Remediate to apply.

11.  Now the final step is to add the host to the Nexus 1000v switch.  Under Inventory > Networking, choose the Nexus 1000v switch and right click, click “Add host”.  Apply the system port-profile to the vmnic and apply appropriate data port profile to the VMs.

12.  After adding, you can type the command “show interface virtual” and “show module” on VSM to verify your work.

Nexus 5000 - SFP validation failed on 1G port

My environment: Nexus 5010 with NX-OS 4.2(1)N2(1)

Nexus 5000 supports 1G connection starting from 4.0(1a)N1(1). I have tried to plug in the GE SFP to N5K and it shows the "SFP validation failed" message" in the "show interface" output. The trick is:

1. Unplug your GE SFP

2. go to your interface configuration, and type "speed 1000". You CAN'T change the port speed after you plug in your SFP.

3. Plug in your GE SFP again. And it works!

More information:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/partner/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5000/sw/command/reference/rel_4_1/ethernet-cmd-ref.html#wp1619365

"If the interface and transceiver speed is mismatched, the SFP validation failed message is displayed when you enter the show interface ethernet slot/port command. For example, if you insert a 1-Gigabit SFP transceiver into a port without configuring the speed 1000 command, you will get this error. By default, all ports on a Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch are 10 Gigabits. "

Learning Nexus 7000 QoS by Example

My environment: Nexus 7010, NX-OS 4.2

Just got a chance to play with the Nexus 7000 NX-OS QoS, the “mls qos” syntax has gone and now all the commands are based on MQC.

 

In the following example, I’m going to configure 2 ingress ports, one with high priority traffic and one with normal traffic, and at egress port high priority traffic will be assigned to PQ to dequeue first.

 

Classification

N7K# conf t

class-map type queuing match-any 1p3q4t-out-pq1

  match cos 5

It can only be done via the main VDC.  It can’t be done on child VDC.  And you can ONLY match cos in the class-map.

Marking

Now let’s mark the ingress traffic, I will do this at the port assigned to the vdc “test”.

N7K# switchto vdc test

N7K-test#

policy-map type queuing highpriority-in-policy

   class type queuing 2q4t-in-q-default

     set cos 5

Scheduling and Queuing

Finally, I want to assign the high priority traffic (cos=5) to PQ

N7K-test#

policy-map type queuing highpriority-out-policy

  class type queuing 1p3q4t-out-pq1

    priority level 1

Last step is to assign service policy to the interface:

N7K-test#

int e3/1

description - High Priority – Ingress -

service-policy type queuing input highpriority-in-policy

!

int e3/2

description – Low Priority – Ingress -

!

int e3/3

description – Egress Port -

service-policy type queuing output highpriority-out-policy

!

Nexus: Hands on with NX-OS, Part#1

A good article from Mark Lewis on Cisco Subnet about NX-OS:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/26877

Some notable difference between NX-OS and IOS are some of the L3 features like OSPF, HSRP, etc.

NX-OS Stateful Process Restart

Demo on NX-OS Stateful Process Restart from Techwise TV:

NX-OS Virtual Device Context

A Demonstration on NX-OS Virtual Device Context (VDC) from TechWise TV: