Virtual Connect and HP A-Series switches (A5820) IRF Integration Guide

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Virtual Connect and HP A-Series switches IRF Integration

Guide

Technical white paper

Feedback: vcirf-feedback@hp.com

Table of contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2

IRF and Virtual Connect setup configurations ....................................................................................... 2

Failover tests .................................................................................................................................... 2

Images of IMC (Intelligent Management Center) and Insight Control for vCenter network monitoring .......... 2

Design scenarios ................................................................................................................................. 3

Network topology ................................................................................................................................ 5

Physical diagram ............................................................................................................................. 5

Logical diagram ............................................................................................................................... 6

IRF and MAD technology overview ........................................................................................................ 7

IRF (Intelligent Resilient Framework) .................................................................................................... 7

MAD (Multi-Active Detection) ............................................................................................................. 8

IRF and Virtual Connect setup configurations ......................................................................................... 10

Quick CLI reference table ................................................................................................................ 10

A5820 switch: Convert standalone switches to IRF logical switch ......................................................... 11

A5820: BFD MAD configuration ...................................................................................................... 14

A5820: LLDP ................................................................................................................................. 15

Flex-10: LLDP ................................................................................................................................. 16

A5820: LACP ................................................................................................................................ 17

Flex-10: LACP ................................................................................................................................ 19

Flex-10: Server Profile ..................................................................................................................... 21

ESXi configuration .......................................................................................................................... 22

Failover tests ..................................................................................................................................... 23

Uplink failure ................................................................................................................................. 23

Switch failure ................................................................................................................................. 26

IRF link failure ................................................................................................................................ 28

Virtual Connect module failure ......................................................................................................... 31

Insight Control for Vmware vCenter monitoring ..................................................................................... 33

IMC network management .................................................................................................................. 36

Appendix 1: A5820 logical switch IRF configuration ............................................................................. 39

Appendix 2: Design 3 running status .................................................................................................. 44

Acronyms ......................................................................................................................................... 45

Summary of content (45 pages)

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Virtual Connect and HP A-Series switches IRF Integration Guide Technical white paper Feedback: vcirf-feedback@hp.com Table of contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 2 IRF and Virtual Connect setup configurations ....................................................................................... 2 Failover tests...........................................................................
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Introduction Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) is an innovative HP switch platform virtualization technology that allows dramatic simplification of the design and operations of data center and campus Ethernet networks. IRF overcomes the limitations of traditional STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) based and legacy competitive designs by delivering new levels of network performance and resiliency. Virtual Connect is an industry standard-based implementation of server-edge virtualization.
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Design scenarios Two typical design scenarios are available to connect Virtual Connect with network switches. A common misunderstanding people tend to have when connecting Virtual Connect with IRF or Cisco vPC/VSS switches is described in the following page. The design does not work. The above concepts apply to all Virtual Connect models providing ethernet connectivity, which include VC 1/10-F, VC Flex-10 and VC Flexfabric modules.
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Scenario 3—This configuration does not work. Configuring one port channel on a logical switch side and one SUS on a Virtual Connect side does not move traffic forward on all four links. Virtual Connect does not support port channels across different modules. Some links will go into standby and not form port channels. See Appendix 2 (on page 44) for the results of this scenario.
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Network topology Physical diagram The IRF cluster consists of one A5820 switch and one A5800-32C switch. Comware software supports IRF clustering on different switch models if they are compatible with each other for IRF. The A5820 and A5800 switches form an IRF bundle link between them with two 10G links. The A5820 switch is switch 1, the master of the domain, and has logical port IRF-Port2.
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between the IRF cluster and the virtual machine’s default gateway (simulated by an HP E-Series switch). Traffic flow testing uses ping packets from VM1 (192.168.1.178) to its default gateway (192.168.1.1). The VM traffic has two paths to reach its default gateway, depending on how the vSwitch hashes VM traffic to a specific vmnic.
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IRF and MAD technology overview IRF (Intelligent Resilient Framework) IRF IRF creates one logical switch from two or more physical switches. The A5820 switch can support up to nine switches in one IRF domain. The logical switch uses standard LACP to connect to any vendor, core, distribution, or edge switches with a failure convergence time of less than 40 milliseconds.
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Physical IRF port Physical IRF ports are physical (copper or fiber) ports bound to an IRF port. They perform the following functions:  Connect IRF member switches  Forward IRF protocol packets and data packets between IRF member switches Member priority determines the role of a member during a role election process. A Priority member with a higher priority is more likely to be a master. The priority of a switch defaults to 1.
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BFD MAD ARP MAD  Fast convergence time  Needs a separate link between two switches to act as a BFD MAD link  Does not require switches outside the IRF domain This MAD is not widely deployed. For more information, see the IRF configuration guide. For more information on IRF and MAD, see the H3C S5820X & S5800 Series Ethernet Switches IRF Configuration Guide. http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c02648772/c02648772.
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IRF and Virtual Connect setup configurations Quick CLI reference table HPN A-Series Comware CLI is similar to the Cisco IOS/NX-OS format. The following table gives a quick comparison of A-Series Comware CLI and Cisco CLI, related to this setup.
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A5820 switch: Convert standalone switches to IRF logical switch This conversion procedure assumes that two standalone switches start from a clean factory-default startup configuration. If not, enter reset saved-config (write erase on Cisco) to reset startupconfig to factory default. A5820 (switch 1) 1. Change switch 1 IRF priority to 10. The default value is 1, and the higher priority is selected to be the IRF master and active switch when MAD is detected. [H3C]irf member 1 priority 10 2.
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A5800 (switch 2) 1. Change switch 2 member ID from default 1 to 2. [H3C]irf member 1 renumber 2 2. Before continuing with the following steps, reboot the switch to make all interface numbering changes from 1/x/y to 2/x/y. This command is executed when the switch is not in system mode. reboot After rebooting 3. Shut down the IRF physical ports to prepare them to be included under the IRF logical port “irf-port 2/1” configuration.
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After merging, IRF status checks the output. For the complete logical switch configuration, see Appendix 2 (on page 44).
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A5820: BFD MAD configuration # vlan 100 # interface vlan-interface100 mad bfd enable mad ip address 100.100.100.1 255.255.255.0 member 1 mad ip address 100.100.100.2 255.255.255.0 member 2 # interface GigabitEthernet1/0/25 port link-mode bridge port access vlan 100 stp disable # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/3 port link-mode bridge port access vlan 100 stp disable To disable STP for the BFD MAD interface, issue the command stp disable.
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A5820: LLDP LLDP (Link-layer Discovery Protocol) is the IEEE standard protocolused by network devices for advertising their identity, capabilities, and neighbors. LLDP performs functions similar to some other proprietary protocols, such as Cisco Discovery Protocol(CDP). LLDP transmits and receives are enabled by default on A5820 interfaces. No configuration is required. The “VcD_xyz” string is the unique Virtual Connect domain ID generated internally when creating Virtual Connect.
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Flex-10: LLDP LLDP transmits and receives are enabled by default on all Virtual Connect modules interfaces, including Flex-10 and Flexfabric. No configuration is required. Trunk-A and Trunk-B are defined in the following LACP sections. All links will show as active only after finishing the LACP configuration on the switch and Virtual Connect. VC1 connects with IRF logical switch ten1/0/1 and ten2/0/25. VC2 connects with IRF logical switch ten1/0/2 and ten2/0/26.
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A5820: LACP The Bridge-Aggregation interface is equal to the port channel interface on Cisco to bundle multiple physical links.
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Bridge-Aggregation interfaces commands 18
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Flex-10: LACP Trunk uplink config on VC1 Trunk uplink config on VC2 19
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Trunk uplinks monitoring on Virtual Connect Both trunks show active/active. Also LAG (Link Aggregation Group) ID shows that a LACP bundle has been established with IRF Virtual Switch. Both channels use LAG 26. Since they are on different modules, Virtual Connect can uniquely identify them.
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Flex-10: Server Profile Server profile configuration Port 3 “Multiple Networks” configuration Port 4 “Multiple Networks” configuration 21
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ESXi configuration Host adapter Switch1 configuration VM1 network adapter configuration for VLAN 2 22
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Failover tests Uplink failure VM1 has a continuous ping to its default GW 192.168.1.1. Under normal conditions, vSwitch hashes the traffic from this VM to the vmnic3, which is mapped to the VC2 and then enters the BridgeAggregate3 interface in the IRF logical switch. The test issued a shut down command under interface b3. From the display MAC address command, we can see the traffic failed over to the other path. Test Result:  Shut down int b3: about 3-4 seconds packets loss.
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Shut int b3 Undo shut int b3 24
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Switch failure VM1 has a continuous ping to its default GW 192.168.1.1. Under normal conditions, vSwitch hashes the traffic from this VM to the vmnic3, which is mapped to VC2 and then enters the BridgeAggregation3 interface in the IRF logical switch. The test issues a reboot command on Switch1 A5820. Switch 2 takes over as the new master and any interface related to 1/y/z is shut down. Test Result: Switch1 down: Ping packet loss did not occur, so the convergence time was less than one second.
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IRF link failure VM1 has a continuous ping to its default GW 192.168.1.1. Under normal conditions, the vSwitch hashes the traffic from this VM to the vmnic3, which is mapped to the VC2 and then enters the BridgeAggregation3 interface in the IRF logical switch. The test issued a shut down command under switch1 A5820 IRF1/2 to simulate IRF link failure. Test Result:  Shut irf-port 1/2: Ping packet loss did not occur, so the convergence time was less than one second.
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Switch2 (A5800) view after IRF link failure with BFD MAD protection Switch2 (A5800) view after all local interfaces were shut down to prevent a dual active scenario 29
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Switch1 (A5820) console log after IRF-link fail 30
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Virtual Connect module failure VM1 has a continuous ping to its default GW 192.168.1.1. Under normal conditions, the vSwitch hashes the traffic from this VM to the vmnic3, which is mapped to the VC2 and enters the BridgeAggregation 3 interface in IRF the logical switch. The test uses the “power off” button on OA (Onboard Administrator) to shut down VC2 to simulate module failure. Test Result:  VC2 down: About one second packet loss  VC2 up: About six seconds packet loss (Please note: VC 3.
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VC2 up With VC 3.30 enhancement, VC2 up event will be reduced to around 500 msec. Please note below fping timeout and interval were set to 500 msec. In the test below, please regard 192.168.1.2 as 192.168.1.1 in previous tests due to different IP scheme in different lab setup.
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Insight Control for Vmware vCenter monitoring Insight Control for vCenter utilizes a visual networking view from vSwitch to Virtual Connect to physical access switch. The following images provide examples of its appearance and functionality. VM1 uses vSwitch1, which has two uplinks (vmnic2 and vmnic3). The uplinks carry tagged packets for VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) 2 and VLAN 3.
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Host H/W inventory details 34
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Host and Enclosure firmware version report 35
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IMC network management HP IMC is HP networking management software that supports network device configuration, accounting, performance, security management, and monitoring. It can manage HP Network devices, as well as routers and switches from other vendors. The following images corresponding to this setup provide an overview of the appearance and functionality of IMC. It does not represent the full functionality of IMC. For more information on IMC, see the HP website: http://h17007.www1.hp.
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Network topology 5820 IRF logical switch 37
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Virtual Connect interface list view Interface traffic rate realtime monitoring 38
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Appendix 1: A5820 logical switch IRF configuration [A5820-IRF]dis current-configuration # version 5.20, Release 1206 # sysname A5820-IRF # irf mac-address persistent timer irf auto-update enable undo irf link-delay irf member 1 priority 10 # domain default enable system # telnet server enable # vlan 1 # vlan 2 # vlan 100 # radius scheme system server-type extended primary authentication 127.0.0.1 1645 primary accounting 127.0.0.
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mad bfd enable mad ip address 100.100.100.1 255.255.255.0 member 1 mad ip address 100.100.100.2 255.255.255.
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# interface GigabitEthernet2/0/14 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/15 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/16 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/17 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/18 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/19 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/20 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/21 port link-mode bridge # interface GigabitEthernet2/0/22 port link-mode bridge # interf
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interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/6 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/7 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/8 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/9 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/10 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/11 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/12 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/13 port link-mode bridge # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/14
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port link-aggregation group 3 # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/23 # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet1/0/24 # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet2/0/27 # interface Ten-GigabitEthernet2/0/28 # ip route-static 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.1.0.1 # snmp-agent snmp-agent local-engineid 800063A203002389437528 snmp-agent community read public snmp-agent sys-info contact ASC-Admin snmp-agent sys-info location ASC snmp-agent sys-info version all snmp-agent target-host trap address udp-domain 10.1.220.
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Appendix 2: Design 3 running status Using design option three, if one port channel interface is configured on an A5820 switch and one SUS is configured on a Virtual Connect to bundle four links on both sides, the A5820 switch does not select two out of four links as active LACP links. VC1 status is OK. VC2 status is not OK. The “LAG ID” column is empty, which means no LACP bundle is established. Both links are put into standby as individual links for this SUS.
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Acronyms ARP – Address Resolution Protocol BFD – Bidirectional Forwarding Detection BPDU - Bridge Protocol Data Unit GW – Gateway IC – Insight Control IMC – Intelligent Management Center IRF – Intelligent Resilient Framework LACP – Link Aggression Control Protocol LACPDU – Link Aggression Control Protocol Data Unit LLDP – Link-Layer Discovery Protocol MAC – Media Access Control MAD – Multi-Active Detection OA – Onboard Administrator SSH – Secure Shell STP – Spanning Tree Protocol SUS – Shared Uplink Set VC