VPC peerlink and Orphan ports

[Peter Coggle]

Hi Experts,

We have 2 Nexus 6001s. We have a peer-link between them. As per Cisco documentation, VPC peer link should not be used for data traffic.

We have a couple of orphan ports on each Nexus 6001. I decided to have a port-channel between the Nexus 6001s for the data traffic of the orphan ports between the 2 Nexus 6001s. 

But I see that the second port-channel between the Nexus switches is in spanning-tree blocked mode.

What is the best practise in this case (other than removing the orphan ports)?

Many thanks for your guidance.

Regards

Pete

[Jay Ocampo · Accepted solution]

Hi Pete,

Do those "orphan ports" you refer to,  belong to a vPC vlan or a non-vPC vlan? If its a non-VPC vlan , you don't need to add it on the vpc peer link otherwise one of the links will be STP blocking as the VPC PL also joins the STP process.

Now if these ports are on a vPC vlan, it will leverage the VPC peer link.

Also to clear out some terminology about orphan ports..

An orphan port has the following characteristics:
● A port on vPC peer device (primary or secondary) that is connected to a single attached device.
● A port on vPC peer device (primary or secondary) that carries vPC VLAN. If the port carries a non-vPC VLAN, it is no more defined as Orphan Port.

HTH

Jay Ocampo

[Peter Coggle]

Thanks a lot for the very helpful reply, Jay.