Nexus 5K and Fabric Interconnect Management ports

Paul Marshall · ‎01-28-2015

I have seen a proposed solution that includes no GbE switching for Management ports for the N5K and 6248 FI's

I know I can connect the N5K's mgmt0 back to back and create a SVI on a VLAN for management, can I do the same with the 6248's?

The current proposal is to use a 2224TP connected to the N5K's for GbE connectivity, can this be used for both the N5K's mgmt0 and the 6248 mgmt0 ports?

Marcin Latosiewicz · ‎01-29-2015

Paul,

The answer will depend on cabling, racking and budget, I don't think there is the _one_ right solution here.

Treat this as some food for thought.

There are at least two schools of thought on this one.

1) Separate management network (i.e. a small switch on the side just for management), to avoid that data path failure in the environment is also not allowing you to manage your devices.

2) Cross connection as you suggest, indeed you have redundancy built in (I assume:]) . In the scenario you indicate above, should the fex become unavailable you should still be able to manage UCS via other side's FI. The questions here is mostly for you. If you already have those FEXes used for something else, you can attach your mgmt0. If your fexes would be only for management maybe you can attach mgmt to N5ks directly or even to upstream switch.

M.