Comments on: Defining VN-Link

By: Joe Onisick

Joe Onisick — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:48:10 +0000

@Pedro Garcia Yes! That is exactly correct, please see my comment #9. The solutions are all similar in functionality and benefit and it makes them quite confusing. Definitely not an easy subject.

By: Joe Onisick

Joe Onisick — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:36:39 +0000

@pedroyaja You are correct, the courseware may be slightly misleading. Cisco VIC/Palo and Nexus 1000v are not mutually exclusive and can be used very well together as you state. The comparison should really be UCS’s Pass-Through Switching (PTS) or Hypervisor Bypass/Direct-Path I/O vs. 1000v dependant on scalability.

While the Nexus 1000v would not require the VIC it could benefit or be provided aditional flexibility via the virtual interface capabilities of the VIC.

By: Pedro García

Pedro García — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:44:43 +0000

Ok. I think I am starting to understand. I think it refers to replace the use of VIC+PTS with Nexus 1000v when you are over 50 vm in a ESX host. If not, I give up…

By: pedroyaja

pedroyaja — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 18:09:53 +0000

Yeah, I see that, but, why “instead”?, why dont use them together? When using VIC the OS can see up to 58 interfaces (if the OS were capable of doing that) so, you can even use VMWare Directh Path to free CPU workload but this is not neccesary. You can use the VIC to show the OS, for instance, four NICs and four HBA’s without Directh Path, can you?? or perhaps I am very wrong about the use of VICs and nexus 1000v

Thanks very much Joe

By: Joe Onisick

Joe Onisick — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:34:28 +0000

@Pedroyaja, The current Generation 1 Cisco VIC supports a max of 58 interfaces when used within UCS blades due to addressing usage for the virtual interfaces. Additionally most operating systems support less PCIe devices then that, which means some virtual interfaces wouldn’t be recognized. This is why for scalability above 50 the Nexus 1000v may be a better choice.

Joe

By: pedroyaja

pedroyaja — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 16:18:33 +0000

I meant “I can not see the reason”

By: pedroyaja

pedroyaja — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:42:16 +0000

Hi Dave,

In one of the Cisco DCUCI student’s guides (volume 2) it is said that: “For Cisco UCS systems hosting more than 50 virtual machines per Cisco UCS VIC M81KR adapter, consider Cisco Nexus 1000V instead of Cisco UCS VIC M81KR/PTS/DVS.”

Why that?? I can see the reason (nor other cisco specialist and trainers I asked)

Thanks in advance

By: Cisco UCS PTS vs 1000v « WWT Datacenter Services Team Blog

Cisco UCS PTS vs 1000v « WWT Datacenter Services Team Blog — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:03:25 +0000

[...] how it can be implemented within your environment. A great description of VN-Link can be found here by Joe Onisick; another great member of the WWT Datacenter [...]

By: Cisco UCS b-Series Server Network Adapter Options Overview | M. Sean McGee

Cisco UCS b-Series Server Network Adapter Options Overview | M. Sean McGee — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 21:07:08 +0000

[...] (PTS) and Hypervisor Bypass (VM Direct Path). See this colleague’s blog for more details: http://www.unifiedcomputingblog.com/?p=116. For flexibility, Palo allows our customers to deploy a single network adapter that can be [...]

By: Joe Onisick

Joe Onisick — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:04:02 +0000

Rawley, as far as management of PTS goes it’s handled within the UCS service profile in much the same way as physical server deployment is handled. Full VMware functionality is still available. The best resources for understanding the management of PTS will be the UCS configuration guides from Cisco.