Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Guide

FlexPod Data Center with VMware vSphere 5.1 and
Cisco Nexus 7000 Design Guide
Last Updated: November 22, 2013
Building Architectures to Solve Business Problems

Cisco Validated Design
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About the Authors
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About the Authors
Lindsey Street, Systems Architect, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering, NetApp
Systems
Lindsey Street is a systems architect in the NetApp Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering
team. She focuses on the architecture, implementation, compatibility, and security of innova-
tive vendor technologies to develop competitive and high-performance end-to-end cloud
solutions for customers. Lindsey started her career in 2006 at Nortel as an interoperability
test engineer, testing customer equipment interoperability for certification. Lindsey has her
Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Networking and her Master's of Science in Infor-
mation Security from East Carolina University.
John George, Reference Architect, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering, NetApp
Systems
John George is a Reference Architect in the NetApp Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering
team and is focused on developing, validating, and supporting cloud infrastructure solutions
that include NetApp products. Before his current role, he supported and administered
Nortel's worldwide training network and VPN infrastructure. John holds a Master's degree in
computer engineering from Clemson University.
Derek Huckaby, Technical Marketing Engineer, Unified Fabric Switching Services
Product Group, Cisco Systems
Derek Huckaby is a Technical Marketing Engineer for the Nexus 7000 Unified Fabric Switch-
ing products focusing on Nexus 7000 integration into FlexPod designs and Nexus 7000 ser-
vices. Prior to joining the Nexus 7000 Product Marketing team, Derek led the team of
Technical Marketing Engineers for the Data Center Application Services BU within Cisco. He
began his work in network services at Cisco over 13 years ago specializing in application
delivery and SSL termination solutions.
Haseeb Niazi, Technical Marketing Engineer, Server Access Virtualization Business
Unit, Cisco Systems
Haseeb has over 13 years of experience at Cisco dealing in Data Center, Security, and WAN
Optimization related technologies. As a member of various solution teams and advanced
services, Haseeb has helped many enterprise and service provider customers evaluate and
deploy a wide range of Cisco solutions. Haseeb holds a master's degree in Computer Engi-
neering from the University of Southern California.

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Chris O'Brien, Technical Marketing Manager, Server Access Virtualization Business
Unit, Cisco Systems
Chris O'Brien is currently focused on developing infrastructure best practices and solutions
that are designed, tested, and documented to facilitate and improve customer deployments.
Previously, O'Brien was an application developer and has worked in the IT industry for more
than 15 years.
Chris Reno, Reference Architect, Infrastructure and Cloud Engineering, NetApp
Systems
Chris Reno is a reference architect in the NetApp Infrastructure and Cloud Enablement
group and is focused on creating, validating, supporting, and evangelizing solutions based
on NetApp products. Before being employed in his current role, he worked with NetApp
product engineers designing and developing innovative ways to perform Q and A for
NetApp products, including enablement of a large grid infrastructure using physical and vir-
tualized compute resources. In these roles, Chris gained expertise in stateless computing,
netboot architectures, and virtualization.

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About Cisco Validated Design (CVD) Program
About Cisco Validated Design (CVD) Program
The CVD program consists of systems and solutions designed, tested, and documented to facilitate
faster, more reliable, and more predictable customer deployments. For more information visit:
http://www.cisco.com/go/designzone
ALL DESIGNS, SPECIFICATIONS, STATEMENTS, INFORMATION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS (COLLEC-
TIVELY, "DESIGNS") IN THIS MANUAL ARE PRESENTED "AS IS," WITH ALL FAULTS. CISCO AND ITS SUP-
PLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTY OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OR ARISING
FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE, OR TRADE PRACTICE. IN NO EVENT SHALL CISCO OR ITS
SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES,
INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS OR LOSS OR DAMAGE TO DATA ARISING OUT OF
THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE DESIGNS, EVEN IF CISCO OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
THE DESIGNS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. USERS ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR
THEIR APPLICATION OF THE DESIGNS. THE DESIGNS DO NOT CONSTITUTE THE TECHNICAL OR
OTHER PROFESSIONAL ADVICE OF CISCO, ITS SUPPLIERS OR PARTNERS. USERS SHOULD CONSULT
THEIR OWN TECHNICAL ADVISORS BEFORE IMPLEMENTING THE DESIGNS. RESULTS MAY VARY
DEPENDING ON FACTORS NOT TESTED BY CISCO.
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All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners.
The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other com-
pany. (0809R)
© 2013 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.
NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, FlexClone, FlexPod, MetroCluster, OnCommand,
SnapLock, SnapMirror, Snapshot, and SnapVault are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc.
in the United States and/or other countries.

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About Cisco Validated Design (CVD) Program

Corporate Headquarters:
Copyright © 2013 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserve
Cisco Systems, Inc., 170 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134-1706 USA
VMware vSphere 5.1 on FlexPod with Nexus 7000
Using FCoE
Goal of This Document
Cisco® Validated Designs include systems and solutions that are designed, tested, and documented to
facilitate and improve customer deployments. These designs incorporate a wide range of technologies
and products into a portfolio of solutions that have been developed to address the business needs of our
customers.
This document describes the Cisco and NetApp® FlexPod® solution, which is a validated approach for
deploying Cisco and NetApp technologies as a shared cloud infrastructure.
Audience
The intended audience of this document includes, but is not limited to, sales engineers, field consultants,
professional services, IT managers, partner engineering, and customers who want to take advantage of
an infrastructure built to deliver IT efficiency and enable IT innovation.
Changes in FlexPod
The following design elements distinguish this version of FlexPod from previous models:
•Introduction of the Cisco Nexus® 7000 product family, providing the highest level of availability.
•End-to-end Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) delivering a unified Ethernet fabric.
•Single wire Cisco Unified Computing System™ Manager (Cisco UCS™ Manager) management for
C-Series M3 servers with the VIC 1225 effectively doubling the server density per I/O module while
reducing cabling cost.
•NetApp clustered Data ONTAP® delivering unified scale-out storage.

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VMware vSphere 5.1 on FlexPod with Nexus 7000 Using FCoE
FlexPod Solution Overview
FlexPod Solution Overview
Industry trends indicate a vast data center transformation toward shared infrastructure and cloud
computing. Enterprise customers are moving away from isolated centers of IT operation toward more
cost-effective virtualized environments.
The objective of the move toward virtualization, and eventually to cloud computing, is to increase agility
and reduce costs.
Especially because companies must address resistance to change in both their organizational and
technical IT models, achieving this transformation can seem daunting and complex. To accelerate the
process and simplify the evolution to a shared cloud infrastructure, Cisco and NetApp have developed a
solution called VMware vSphere® on FlexPod.
FlexPod® is a predesigned, best practice data center architecture that is built on the Cisco UCS, the
Cisco Nexus® family of switches, and NetApp Fabric Attached storage (FAS) or V-Series systems.
FlexPod is a suitable platform for running a variety of virtualization hypervisors as well as bare metal
operating systems and enterprise workloads. FlexPod delivers a baseline configuration and also has the
flexibility to be sized and optimized to accommodate many different use cases and requirements.
Figure 1 shows the components used in this solution, while also highlighting the inherent flexibility of
FlexPod.
Figure 1 FlexPod Component Families
This document describes VMware vSphere 5.1 built on the FlexPod model from Cisco and NetApp and
discusses design choices and deployment of best practices using this shared infrastructure platform.

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VMware vSphere 5.1 on FlexPod with Nexus 7000 Using FCoE
FlexPod Solution Overview
Customer Challenges
As customers transition toward shared infrastructure or cloud computing, they face a number of
questions, such as:
•How do I start the transition?
•What will my return on investment be?
•How do I build a future-proof infrastructure?
•How do I cost-effectively transition from my current infrastructure?
•Will my applications run properly in a shared infrastructure?
•How do I manage the infrastructure?
The FlexPod architecture is designed to help you answer these questions by providing proven guidance
and measurable value. By introducing standardization, FlexPod helps customers mitigate the risk and
uncertainty involved in planning, designing, and implementing a new data center infrastructure. The
result is a more predictive and adaptable architecture capable of meeting and exceeding customers’ IT
demands.
FlexPod Program Benefits
Cisco and NetApp have thoroughly validated and verified the FlexPod solution architecture and its many
use cases while creating a portfolio of detailed documentation, information, and references to assist
customers in transforming their data centers to this shared infrastructure model. This portfolio includes,
but is not limited to the following items:
•Best practice architectural design
•Workload sizing and scaling guidance
•Implementation and deployment instructions
•Technical specifications (rules for what is, and what is not, a FlexPod configuration)
•Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
•Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) and NetApp Validated Architectures (NVAs) focused on a variety
of use cases
Cisco and NetApp have also built an experienced support team focused on FlexPod solutions, from
customer account and technical sales representatives to professional services and technical support
engineers. The support alliance provided by NetApp and Cisco provides customers and channel services
partners with direct access to technical experts who collaborate with multiple Vendors and have access
to shared lab resources to resolve potential issues.
FlexPod supports tight integration with virtualized and cloud infrastructures, making it the logical
choice for long-term investment. The following IT initiatives are addressed by the FlexPod solution.
Integrated System
FlexPod is a prevalidated infrastructure that brings together computing, storage, and network to simplify,
accelerate, and minimize the risk associated with data center builds and application rollouts. These
integrated systems provide a standardized approach in the data center supports staff expertise,
application onboarding, and automation, as well as operational efficiencies that are important for
compliance and certification.

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VMware vSphere 5.1 on FlexPod with Nexus 7000 Using FCoE
FlexPod Solution Overview
Fabric Infrastructure Resilience
FlexPod is a highly available and scalable infrastructure that IT can evolve over time to support multiple
physical and virtual application workloads. FlexPod has no single point of failure at any level, from the
server through the network, to the storage. The fabric is fully redundant and scalable and provides
seamless traffic failover should any individual component fail at the physical or virtual layer.
Fabric Convergence
FlexPod components are interconnected through the Cisco Unified Fabric network architecture, which
supports both traditional LAN traffic and all types of storage traffic, including the lossless requirements
for block-level storage transport over FC or FCoE. The Cisco Unified Fabric creates high-performance,
low-latency, and highly available networks, serving a diverse set of data center needs.
FlexPod uses the Cisco Unified Fabric to offer a wire-once environment that accelerates application
deployment. Cisco Unified Fabric also offers the efficiencies associated with infrastructure
consolidation, including:
•Cost savings from the reduction in switches (LAN/SAN switch ports), associated cabling, rack
space, all of which reduce capital expenditures (capex)
•Cost savings on power and cooling, which reduce operating expenses (opex)
•Migration to the faster 10 Gigabit Ethernet network, and in the future, to 40 Gigabit Ethernet and
100 Gigabit Ethernet
•Evolution to a converged network with little disruption to operations
•FlexPod with Cisco Unified Fabric helps you preserve investments in existing infrastructure,
management tools, and staff training and expertise
•Simplified cabling, provisioning, and network maintenance to improve productivity and operational
models
Network Virtualization
FlexPod delivers the capability to securely connect virtual machines into the network. This solution
allows network policies and services to be uniformly applied within the integrated compute stack using
technologies such as virtual LANs (VLANs), Quality of Service (QoS), and the Cisco Nexus 1000v
virtual distributed switch. This capability enables the full utilization of FlexPod while maintaining
consistent application and security policy enforcement across the stack even with workload mobility.
FlexPod provides a uniform approach to IT architecture, offering a well-characterized and documented
shared pool of resources for application workloads. FlexPod delivers operational efficiency and
consistency with the versatility to meet a variety of SLAs and IT initiatives, including:
•Application rollouts or application migrations
•Business continuity/disaster recovery
•Desktop virtualization
•Cloud delivery models (public, private, hybrid) and service models (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)
•Asset consolidation and virtualization