HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 & FlexFabric Cisco Nexus 5000 & 2000 series Integration

Introduction

This document will cover how to configure Cisco Nexus 5000 series switches, and Cisco Nexus

2000 series Fabric Extender specifically Cisco Nexus 2232PP Fabric Extender based on two logical

architecture lab designs shown in a later section. The purpose of this document is to highlight Cisco

Ether Channel and Cisco Virtual Port Channel (vPC) features to easily interoperate with HP Virtual

Connect Flex-10 Interconnect Module and HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric

Interconnect Module.

This document does not recommend or try to present by any way the general network best practice

design architecture for any of HP or Cisco products including the products specifically used in this

document. This document was produced based on the behaviour of different lab designs architecture

utilizing the below mentioned hardware list of equipment in a test lab environment. It is totally up to

the reader to change the architecture and the configuration as per the mentioned product support

feature list and business need requirements. The terminologies and definitions of Cisco technologies

are all based on Cisco definitions from the public information published in www.cisco.com.

This document covers some of the Cisco Nexus 2000 series Fabric Extender definitions to familiarise

the reader with Cisco terminologies that are used later in the lab. It does not cover how to add Cisco

Nexus Fabric Extender 2000 series to its parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch. It assumes that you

know how to add a Cisco Nexus 2000 Fabric Extender to its parent Cisco Nexus 5000 series switch

in a Single Homed vPC Topology.

The lab design architecture components used in this document are:

 HP c7000 series Enclosure

 HP Virtual Connect Flex-10

 Cisco Nexus 5020 switch

 Cisco Nexus 2232PP Fabric Extender

This Document will cover design scenario 1 and design scenario 3 in more details including

Cisco NX-OS CLI configuration and verification commands.

For more technical information about HP Virtual Connect please visit

http://www.HP.com/go/VirtualConnect

Cisco Nexus Fabric Extenders 2000 series

As described in Cisco Systems website, Cisco Nexus Fabric Extenders 2000 series integrates with its

parent switch, Cisco Nexus 5000 series, to get its configuration from the settings of the parent switch.

There is no software included in the Fabric Extenders 2000 series and it gets its operating system

from its parent switch. Cisco Fabric Extenders 2000 series connect to its parent switch using a Fabric

Interface. Fabric Interface is a 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplink port designated for connection from the

Fabric Extender to its parent switch. A fabric interface cannot be used for any other purpose. It must

be directly connected to the parent switch.

You can combine Fabric Interfaces together to form a logical bundle called EtherChannel Fabric

Interface to communicate between Fabric Extenders 2000 series and its parent switch. End host or

server connectivity should be connected to Cisco Nexus Fabric Extender 2000 series through a Host