Cisco Nexus 7000 Design Manual page 13

FlexPod Design Details
The Spanning Tree protocol does not actively block redundant physical links in a properly configured
Note
vPC-enabled environment, so all ports should forward on the vPC member ports.
This dedicated uplink design leverages FCoE-capable NetApp FAS controllers. From a storage traffic
perspective, both standard LACP and Cisco vPC link aggregation technologies play an important role in
FlexPod distinct uplink design. Figure 2 shows the use of dedicated FCoE uplinks between the Cisco
UCS Fabric Interconnects and Cisco Nexus 7000 Unified Switches. The Cisco UCS Fabric Interconnects
operate in the N-Port Virtualization (NPV) mode, meaning the servers' FC traffic is either manually or
automatically pinned to a specific FCoE uplink, in this case either of the two FCoE port channels are
pinned. The use of discrete FCoE port channels with distinct VSANs allows an organization to maintain
traditional SAN A/B fabric separation best practices, including separate zone databases. The vPC links
between the Cisco Nexus 7000 switches' and NetApp storage controllers' Unified Target Adapters
(UTAs) are utilized for the Ethernet traffic, and dedicated FCoE links between the systems maintain
SAN A/B fabric segregation.
Figure 2 shows the initial storage configuration of this solution, as a two-node HA pair with the NetApp
clustered Data ONTAP. An HA pair consists of like storage nodes such as FAS22xx, 32xx, or 62xx
Series. Scalability is achieved by adding storage capacity (disk/shelves) to an existing HA pair, or by
adding HA pairs into the cluster or storage domain. For SAN environments, the NetApp clustered Data
ONTAP offering allows up to three HA pairs that include six clustered nodes to form a single logical
entity and large resource pool of storage that can be easily managed, logically carved, and efficiently
consumed. For NAS environments, up to 24 nodes can be configured. In both the scenarios, the HA
interconnect allows each HA node pair to assume control of its partner's storage (disk/shelves) directly.
The local physical high-availability storage failover capability does not extend beyond the HA pair.
Furthermore, a cluster of nodes does not have to include similar hardware. Rather, individual nodes in
an HA pair are configured alike, allowing customers to scale as needed, as they bring additional HA pairs
into the larger cluster.
Network failover is independent of the HA interconnect. Network failover of each node in the cluster is
supported by both the interconnect and switching fabric, permitting cluster, data and management
network interfaces to fail over to different nodes in the cluster, which extends beyond the HA pair.
Figure 3 shows FlexPod distinct uplink design with Data ONTAP operating in 7-Mode. Data ONTAP
operating in 7-Mode is NetApp's traditional functional model. As depicted, the FAS devices are
configured in an HA pair delivering five nines availability. Scalability is achieved through the addition
of storage capacity (disk/shelves), as well as through additional controllers such as FAS2200, 3200, or
6200 Series. The controllers are only deployed in HA pairs, meaning more HA pairs can be added for
scalability, but each pair is managed separately.
VMware vSphere 5.1 on FlexPod with Nexus 7000 Using FCoE
13