Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller Verified Scalability

Verified Scale Limits for Release 12.1.1e

This section provides verified scalability values for various deployment types for Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller, Release 12.1.1e.

The values are validated on testbeds that are enabled with a reasonable number of features and aren’t theoretical system limits for Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller software or Cisco Nexus/MDS switch hardware and software. When you try to achieve maximum scalability by scaling multiple features at the same time, results might differ from the values that are listed here.

Nexus Dashboard Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements

The following table provides information about Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements to run NDFC on top of Nexus Dashboard. Refer to Nexus Dashboard Capacity Planning to determine the number of switches supported for each deployment.

Table 1. Server Resource (CPU/Memory) Requirements to run NDFC on top of Nexus Dashboard
Deployment Type Node Type CPUs Memory Storage (Throughput: 40-50MB/s)
Fabric Discovery Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA

16vCPUs

64GB

 550GB SSD

Physical Node (pND)

(PID: SE-NODE-G2)

2x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU

256 GB of RAM

4x 2.4TB HDDs

400GB SSD

1.2TB NVME drive
Fabric Controller Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA 16vCPUs 64GB 550GB SSD

Physical Node (pND)

(PID: SE-NODE-G2)

2x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU

256 GB of RAM

4x 2.4TB HDDs

400GB SSD

1.2TB NVME drive
SAN Controller

Virtual Node (vND) – app OVA

(without SAN Insights)

16vCPUs

with physical reservation

64GB

with physical reservation

 550GB SSD

Data Node (vND) – Data OVA

(with SAN Insights)

32vCPUs

with physical reservation

128GB

with physical reservation

 3TB SSD

Physical Node (pND)

(PID: SE-NODE-G2)

 2x 10-core 2.2G Intel Xeon Silver CPU

256 GB of RAM

4x 2.4TB HDDs

400GB SSD

1.2TB NVME drive

Virtual Node (vND)

Virtual Node (Default Profile on Linux RHEL)

16vCPUs

64 GB

550GB SSD

500GB HDD

Note

 

SSD+HDD = 550GB

Virtual Node (vND)

Virtual Node (Large Profile on Linux RHEL)

32vCPUs

128 GB

3TB

Scale Limits for Cohosting NDFC and other Services

Table 2. Scale Limits for Cohosting Nexus Dashboard Insights and NDFC

Profile

Node Type

Verified Limit

Nexus Dashboard Insights and Nexus Dashboard Fabric Discovery

4-Node pND (SE)

50 Switches, 10K Flows

Nexus Dashboard Insights and Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller

5-Node pND (SE)

50 Switches, 10K Flows

Scale Limits for NDFC Fabric Discovery

Table 3. Scale Limits for Fabric Discovery Persona and Nexus Dashboard

Profile

Deployment Type

Verified Limit

Fabric Discovery

1-Node vND (app OVA)

<= 25 switches (Non-Production)

Fabric Discovery

3-Node vND (app OVA)

150 Switches

Fabric Discovery

3-Node pND (SE)

1000 Switches

Scale Limits for NDFC Fabric Controller

Table 4. Scale Limits for Fabric Controller Persona and Nexus Dashboard

Profile

Deployment Type

Verified Limit

Fabric Controller (Non-Production)

1-Node vND (app OVA)

<= 25 switches (Non-Production)

Fabric Controller

3-Node vND (app OVA)

80 Switches

Fabric Controller

3-Node pND (SE)

400 Switches

Fabric Controller

5-Node vND (app OVA)

400 Switches
Table 5. Scale Limits for Switches and Fabrics in Fabric Controller

Description

Verified Limit

Switches per fabric in NDFC

150

Switches per NDFC instance in managed mode

400

Switches per NDFC instance in monitored mode

1000

Fabrics supported in NDFC per instance

25

Physical Interface per NDFC instance

30000
Table 6. Scale Limits For Provisioning New VXLAN EVPN Fabrics (also referred to as "Greenfield" Deployment)

Description

Verified Limit

Fabric Underlay Overlay

Switches per fabric

 150
Overlay Scale for VRFs and Networks

500 VRFs, 1000 Layer-3 Networks

or

1500 Layer-2 Networks
VRF instances for external connectivity

500

IPAM Integrator application

150 networks with a total of 4K IP allocations on the Infoblox server

ToR and Leaf devices

An Easy fabric can manage both Layer-2 ToRs and VXLAN Leafs. Maximum scale for this fabric is 50 Leaf and 200 ToRs.
Endpoint Locator
Endpoints 50000

Multi-Site Domain

Sites

12

Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)

Virtual Machines (VMs)

5500

VMware Center Servers

4

Kubernetes Visualizer application

Maximum of 159 namespaces with maxium of 1002 pods

Note

Refer to the following table if you are transitioning a Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches based VXLAN EVPN fabric management to NDFC. Before the migration, your fabric was an NFM managed or CLI configured fabric.

Table 7. Scale Limits For Transitioning Existing Fabric Management to NDFC (also referred to as "Brownfield Migration")

Description

Verified Limit

Fabric Underlay and Overlay
Switches per fabric 100
Physical Interfaces 5000
VRF instances 100
Overlay networks 500
VRF instances for external connectivity 100
Endpoint Locator
Endpoints 50000
IPAM Integrator application 150 networks with a total of 4K IP allocations on the Infoblox server

Scale Limits for IPFM Fabrics

Table 8. Scale Limits for Nexus Dashboard and IPFM Fabrics

Profile

Deployment Type

Verified Limit

Fabric Controller

1-Node vND

35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs)

Fabric Controller

3-Node vND

35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs)

Fabric Controller

1-Node pND

35 switches (2 Spines and 33 Leafs)

Fabric Controller

3-Node pND

80 switches (2 Spines and Leafs)
Table 9. Scale Limits for IPFM Fabrics

Description

Verified Limit

Switches

80

Number of routes

32000

Host Policy

Sender

8000

Receiver

8000

PIM

512

Flow Policy

2000

ASM group-range

20

NBM Static Flows

Per switch maximum (receiver leaf where the static OIF will be programmed) mroutes

1500

Per fabric maximum mroutes

8000

VRFs

16

RTP Flow Monitoring with ACL

ACL

128 IPv4 ACL entries or 64 IPv6 entries (total 128 TCAM spaces)

Note

 

With combined IPv4 and IPv6 ACL entries, scale limit cannot exceed 128 TCAM spaces.

Scale Limits for NDFC SAN Controller

Table 10. Scale Limits for SAN Zones

Description

Verified Limits

Zone sets

1000

Zone

16000
Table 11. Scale Limits for Nexus Dashboard and SAN Controller Persona (without SAN Insights)

Profile

Deployment Type

Verified Limit

SAN Controller

1-Node vND (app OVA)

80 Switches, 20K Ports

SAN Controller

3-Node vND (app OVA)

80 Switches, 20K Ports

SAN Controller on Linux (RHEL)

(Install Profile: Default)

1-Node vND (app OVA)

80 Switches, 20K Ports

SAN Controller on Linux (RHEL)

(Install Profile: Default)

3-Node vND (app OVA)

80 Switches, 20K Ports
Table 12. Scale Limits for Nexus Dashboard and SAN Controller Persona (with SAN Insights)

Profile

Deployment Type

Verified Limit

SAN Controller

1-Node vND (data OVA)

120K ITLs/ITNs

SAN Controller

1-Node pND (SE)

120K ITLs/ITNs

SAN Controller

3-Node vND (data OVA)

240K ITLs/ITNs

SAN Controller

3-Node pND (SE)

500K ITLs/ITNs

SAN Controller on Linux (RHEL)

(Install Profile: Large)

1-Node vND

120K ITLs/ITNs

SAN Controller on Linux (RHEL)

(Install Profile: Large)

3-Node vND

240K ITLs/ITNs

Note

ITLs - Initiator-Target-LUNs

ITNs - Initiator-Target-Namespace ID