What You Will Learn; Audience; Overview; Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch Components - Cisco Nexus 1000V Deployment Manual

What You Will Learn

This document provides design and configuration guidance for deployment of the Cisco Nexus
Microsoft Hyper-V. For detailed installation and configuration documentation, refer to the respective Cisco
documentation at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps13056/index.html.

Audience

This document is intended for network architects, network engineers, virtualization administrators, and server
administrators interested in understanding the deployment of the Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch for Microsoft Hyper-
V.

Overview

When server virtualization is implemented, the edge of the network is pushed from the traditional location in the
network access layer, implemented in physical switches, to the virtual network access layer that is implemented in
software in the server hypervisor. The Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch is an intelligent virtual network access layer
switch that runs Cisco NX-OS Software, Cisco's data center operating system that runs on all Cisco data center
products. Operating inside the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor, the Cisco Nexus 1000V supports Cisco Virtual
Network Link (VN-Link) server virtualization technology to provide:
Policy-based virtual machine connectivity
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Mobile virtual machine security and network policy
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Nondisruptive operating model for your server virtualization and networking teams
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When server virtualization is implemented in the data center, servers and virtual machines are not managed the
same way as physical servers. Server virtualization is treated as a special deployment, leading to longer
deployment time, with more coordination needed among server, network, storage, and security administrators.
With the Cisco Nexus 1000V, you have a consistent networking feature set and configuration and provisioning
model for both the physical and the virtual networks. Virtual machine networks can use the same network
configuration, security policy, diagnostic tools, and operating models as physical server deployments that are
connected to physical switches. This unified approach provides faster deployment and troubleshooting and makes
the administration of virtualization environments essentially the same as for nonvirtualized deployments.
Developed in close collaboration with Microsoft, the Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch is certified by Microsoft and
integrates with Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).
You can use the Cisco Nexus 1000V to manage your virtual machine connectivity with confidence in the integrity
of the server virtualization infrastructure.

Cisco Nexus 1000V Switch Components

Cisco Nexus 1000V Switches have two main components:
Virtual supervisor module (VSM)
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Virtual Ethernet module (VEM)
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The VSM provides the switch control and management plane, and the VEM provides the data plane for the switch
(Figure 1). The VSM can run as a virtual machine on any Microsoft Hyper-V host or as a virtual service node on
the Cisco Nexus 1010 and 1110. The VEM runs as a plug-in (extension) to the Microsoft Hyper-V switch in the
hypervisor kernel, providing switching between virtual machines.
© 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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1000V Switch for
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