Nexus 1000 configuration vMotion

[markuk]

Hi,

We are currently looking at nexus in a POC environment and we have configured the Control, MgMt, Packet and Virtual Machine Network port groups, but we are having a problem creating a vMotion port group and assigning it a physical adapter.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Mark

[mmehta76]

Hi Mark,

can you please elaborate on the problems you are facing. Generally, for vmotion port-group, you can create a port-profile in Nexus 1000V VSM, and when that port-profile is available in VSphere as a port-group, you can assign that to VMknic associated with Vmotion. Similar operation is required in terms of creating uplink port profiles for the physical adapter to associate it with Nexus 1000V.

Please also check out the FAQs and documentation at the Cisco Nexus 1000V community site:

https://www.myciscocommunity.com/community/products/nexus1000v

Munish.

[markuk]

Hi,

I am trying to figure out how to do vmotion on the Cisco Nexus. At the moment i have both cold/hot migrations taking place but i am not sure if its best practise the way i have configured it.

Basically i created a port profile, which is below,

Port-profile VMotion

vmware-port group

switchport mode access

switchport access vlan 963

system vlan 963

no shut

state enabled.

If i change the my system-uplink port profile to allow the extra system vlan, it works perfectly. So i have created the VMKernal interfaces and everything work great.

I want to be able to use VMotion without using a System VLAN and also using a unused VMNIC, so that the Vmotion traffic will be using a complete seperate PNIC, to normal VM data and System traffic. Reading through your test document (which is very impressive) you use your system up link for Vmotion, but as mentioned before we would like to have a seperate PNIC only used for VMotion.

Question is how do i configure this in the Nexus 1000v and Vcenter?

Many thanks for your reply.

Mark

[lwatta]

Mark,

First I highly recommend that your vmotion vlan always be a system vlan both on the port-profile for the vmk interface and on the uplink that will cary that traffic. It pretty much has to be that way if you want it to work.

These interfaces should always have a system vlan directive on them console for n1kv, packet for n1kv, service console, vmk interfaces (for both vmotion and any network storage), and any management interfaces that may need access to the host even if the n1kv is down. The system vlan directive has to be on the veth and the eth ports. Remember the N1KV is a switch and when you enable system vlan only on the veth port it can go in the switch but not out the uplink. By enabling system vlan on the uplink port you give the packet a clear flow in and out of the n1kv even when the VEM is not programmed.

Looks like in the screenshot that you already created the vmotion uplink. If you want to add a NIC to this uplink just click on "manage physical adapters" and add a free vmnic to that uplink.

One big caveat with your proposed configuration. Your vmotion vlan can only be carried on your vmotion uplink. Do not add that vlan to any of the other uplinks on the n1kv. If you add that vlan to the other uplinks your vmotion traffic could end getting passed on those uplinks and you'll see lots of duplicate packet errors on the VSM.

louis