This document describes the features, bugs, and limitations for the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Virtual Pod (vPod) switch software.
Note: Use this document in combination with the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) Release Notes, which you can view at the following location:
Release notes are sometimes updated with new information about restrictions and bugs. See this website for the most recent version of this document.
Table 1 shows the online change history for this document.
Table 1: Online History Change
Date |
Description |
2018-12-20 |
Cisco ACI vPod Release 4.0(2c) became available. |
2018-12-21 |
Correcting release number on HTML page from 4.0(2a) to 4.0(2c). |
This document includes the following sections:
Cisco ACI vPod Software Compatibility
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Virtual Pod (vPod) is a software-only solution that enables you to virtually extend the Cisco ACI fabric into bare-metal cloud environments and other remote locations. It is in general availability in Cisco APIC Release 4.0(2c).
You can deploy Cisco ACI vPod wherever you have at least two servers on which you can run the ESXi hypervisor. It allows you to use Cisco ACI Virtual Edge where you do not have a physical leaf.
Cisco ACI vPod and its components—a pair of virtual spines (vSpines), a pair of virtual leafs (vLeafs), and Cisco ACI Virtual Edge—run on the ESXi hypervisor. The vSpines and vLeafs handle control plane management, and the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge handles packet forwarding, policy enforcement, and all data plane management.
Cisco ACI vPod manages a data center defined by the VMware vCenter Server. You can have up to eight instances of Cisco ACI Virtual Edge in each Cisco ACI vPod in the remote location. You use Cisco APIC to manage Cisco ACI vPod nodes and enforce Cisco ACI policy in the virtual data center.
Cisco ACI vPod communicates with a physical, on-premises pod or multipod over an interpod network. You configure the physical pod or multipod, the interpod connection, and Cisco ACI vPod in Cisco APIC. You then use the Cisco ACI vCenter plug-in, a Python script, or PowerCLI to deploy Cisco ACI vPod component virtual machines (VMs).
Cisco ACI vPod is compatible with any server hardware listed in the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide.
Note: When you install or configure Cisco ACI vPod, you may see Cisco ACI vPod options labeled vPod.
Cisco ACI Virtual Pod Release 4.0(2c) is supported for Cisco APIC with releases 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7 of VMware vSphere.
Cisco ACI vPod Release 4.0(2c) is compatible with Cisco APIC 4.0(2c) and later versions.
See the Cisco APIC and ACI Virtual Edge Support Matrix for details.
The Cisco ACI Virtualization Compatibility Matrix provides interoperability information for Cisco ACI components and configurations that have been tested and validated by Cisco, by Cisco partners, or both.
The Cisco APIC and ACI Virtual Edge Support Matrix is an interactive tool that enables you to choose an APIC version and view the compatible Cisco ACI vPod, Cisco ACI Virtual Edge, vSphere, and compatible Cisco APIC versions.
We recommend that you install Cisco ACI vPod management components—vSpine and vLeaf pairs—on two different hosts. Deploy each pair on two separate hosts with one vSpine and one vLeaf on each host.
At initial release, each instance of Cisco ACI vPod supports two vSpines and two vLeafs—one vSpine and one vLeaf on each host.
Cisco ACI vPod management should be in a separate management cluster from any instance of Cisco ACI Virtual Edge.
We recommended that you not reload or shut down both the vLeafs or vSpines at same time to avoid issues with endpoint attach and traffic.
For Cisco ACI Virtual Edge scalability information, see the Verified Scalability Guide for Cisco ACI for the relevant Cisco APIC release.
Cisco ACI vPod is available only on the VMware ESXi hypervisor at initial release.
Cisco ACI vPod is not supported for Cisco ACI Multi-Site environments.
■ The server where you install Cisco ACI Virtual Edge must have an Intel Nehalem CPU or later. You also must set the cluster Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) to a Nehalem CPU or later. See the knowledge base article Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (1003212) on the VMware web site.
■ Only one Cisco ACI Virtual Edge per host is supported.
■ Removing Cisco ACI Virtual Edge or the ESXi host from the VMware vCenter and then adding it back in is not supported. If you do that, Cisco ACI Virtual Edge loses password, infra VLAN, IP address, and other key configurations. You should instead delete the original Cisco ACI Virtual Edge and deploy a new one.
■ After you deploy Cisco ACI Virtual Edge, if the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge VM is moved across VMware vCenter, all the configurations that you made during deployment are lost.
■ We recommend that you install Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs on a dedicated VMware cluster.
If you configure a management interface IP address, the Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs must have IPv4 addresses.
Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs are not supported for VMware vSphere vMotion.
Note: After you migrate VMs using cross-data center VMware vMotion in the same VMware vCenter, you may find a stale VM entry under the source DVS. This stale entry can cause problems, such as host removal failure. The workaround for this problem is to enable "Start monitoring port state" on the vNetwork DVS. See the KB topic "Refreshing port state information for a vNetwork Distributed Virtual Switch" on the VMware Web site for instructions.
Remote leaf is not supported for Cisco ACI vPod in this release.
The deletion of VLAN pools that are associated to a VMM domain is not supported. You can add a new range of VLANs to the VLAN pool whenever it is required.
Cisco ACI Virtual Edge is not supported for the following features when it is part of Cisco ACI vPod:
■ VXLAN load balancing
■ Enhanced LACP
■ VMware vSphere Proactive HA
■ Microsegmentation with Cisco ACI (microsegmented EPGs)
■ SPAN and ERSPAN
■ Subnets configured under EPGs
■ Bridge domain-to-VRF mapping change
When both vLeafs (vToRs) are powered off, continuous WAN traffic stops. There are no WAN routes on vSpine Council of Oracles Protocol (COOP), and learned WAN endpoints on Cisco ACI Virtual Edge are removed.
For Cisco ACI Virtual Edge in Cisco ACI vPod, do not delete a bridge domain or virtual routing and forwarding (VRF) or change the bridge domain-to-VRF association if an endpoint group (EPG) is associated with the bridge domain.
If you want to delete the bridge domain or VRF or change the association, first ensure that there are no EPGs associated with the bridge domain or that any associated EPGs do not contain any endpoints. Otherwise, you may encounter connectivity problems.
Use the Bug Search tool to search for a specific bug or to search for all bugs in a release.
1. Go to http://tools.cisco.com/bugsearch.
2. At the Log In screen, enter your registered Cisco.com username and password; then, click Log In. The Bug Search page opens.
Note: If you do not have a Cisco.com username and password, you can register for them at http://tools.cisco.com/RPF/register/register.do.
3. To search for a specific bug, enter the bug ID in the Search For field and press Return.
4. To search for bugs in the current release:
a. In the Search For field, enter a problem, feature, or a product name and press Return. (Leave the other fields empty.)
b. When the search results are displayed, use the filter tools to find the types of bugs you are looking for. You can search for bugs by modified date, status, severity, and so forth.
5. To export the results to a spreadsheet, click the Export Results to Excel link.
Table 2 lists the open bugs for Cisco ACI vPod for the 4.0(2c) release:
Table 2: Open bugs
Bug ID |
Headline |
Contract statistics are not pushed to Cisco APIC from Cisco ACI Virtual Edge. |
|
Traffic loss for 40 seconds on flood traffic upon designated Cisco ACI Virtual Edge failover. |
|
Make vem-support commands work for admin accounts. |
|
COOP sends a double bounce to source and destination Cisco ACI Virtual Edge on inter-vPod vMotion. |
|
Traffic loss can occur for up to 660 seconds when an endpoint within a Cisco ACI vPod fails to migrate from the source to destination Cisco ACI Virtual Edge switches. |
Table 3 lists the closed bugs for Cisco ACI vPod for the 4.0(2c) release:
Table 3: Closed bugs
Bug ID |
Headline |
Bounce entry is deleted prematurely if last endpoint on the bridge domain is migrated out with vMotion. |
|
XR entries for physical pod endpoints point to the old routable unicast TEP pool. |
|
vPod: Cisco ACI Virtual Edge ave-ctl BD vteplist shows wrong BD vnid. |
When failover occurs, the VM is moved to a new Cisco ACI Virtual Edge in cloud mode. Other data VMS try to communicate with the original Cisco ACI Virtual Edge. Traffic recovers after the learned entry after 5 minutes.
Cisco APIC documentation is available at the following URL:
Cisco APIC documentation includes the Cisco ACI Virtualization Guide, which provides detailed information about Distributed Firewall with Cisco ACI.
To provide technical feedback on this document or report an error or omission, please send your comments to avs-docfeedback@cisco.com. We appreciate your feedback.
For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What’s New in Cisco Product Documentation at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html.
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