Nexus 5K VPC Peer-Link

[Patrick Murphy]

Hi All:

I just want to confirm I understand the VPC Peer-Link correctly.  We have 2 6509 VSS as cores and 2 N5K's using VPC.  If 2 servers were single connected to the N5k on an "orphaned" port (one server on each 5k), how will this traffic flow between the two servers?  From what I understand, this traffic flow would be sent through the 6509's.  It would not normally traverse the 5k peer-link, correct?  If we wanted the traffic to flow directly between the 2 N5k's, we would need to setup a seperate physical trunk between the 2 N5k's?

Thanks,

Patrick

[belovell]

This will most likely work but is not a cisco recommended design and if you did run into a forwarding problem speciffic to this scenario it's not 100% that the developers would consider it supported and fix the bug. If this was a 7K there would be a few additional gotchas that would make it an even worse idea. On a 5K you can likely get away with it but the short answer is don't do it.

-Ben

[Patrick Murphy]

Thanks for the confirmation.  I definately don't want to setup a seperate direct connection between the N5K for data traffic.  Like, you said, there are a host of caveats that will pop up.

Thanks,

Patrick