Configuring a Forwarding Scale Profile Policy

Forwarding Scale Profile Policy Overview

The Forwarding Scale Profile policy provides different scalability options. For example:

  • Dual Stack—provides scalability of up to 12,000 endpoints for IPv6 configurations and up to 24,000 endpoints for IPv4 configurations.

  • IPv4 Scale—enables systems with no IPv6 configurations to increase scalability to 48,000 IPv4 endpoints.

  • High Dual Stack—provides scalability of up to 64,000 MAC endpoints and 64,000 IPv4 endpoints. IPv6 endpoint scale can be 24,000/48,000, depending on the switch hardware model.


    Note

    With Cisco APIC Release 3.2(1), depending on your TOR switch hardware, a Forwarding Scale Profile with the High Dual Stack option has different scales; for example:

    • For Cisco Nexus 9000 Series TOR switches with FX in the switch name, the high dual-stack option has scalability of 48,000 IPv6 endpoints instead of 24,000 and 128,000 policies instead of 8,000.

    • For Cisco Nexus 9000 Series TOR switches with EX in the switch name, the high dual-stack option has the same scale values as with earlier APIC releases.

    See the following table for more details.
Table 1. Forwarding Scale Profile Policy Scalability

Forwarding Scale Profile Policy Options

TOR Switches with EX Names

TOR Switches with FX Names

Dual Stack

  • EP MAC: 24,000

  • EP IPv4: 24,000

  • EP IPv6: 12,000

  • LPM: 20,000

  • Policy: 64,000

  • Multicast: 8,000

Has the same scalability numbers as Dual Stack scale on earlier switches.

High Dual Stack

  • EP MAC: 64,000

  • EP IPv4: 64,000

  • EP IPv6: 24,000

  • LPM: 38,000

  • Policy: 8,000

  • Multicast: 0

  • EP MAC: 64,000

  • EP IPv4: 64,000

  • EP IPv6: 48,000

  • LPM: 38,000

  • Policy: 128,000

  • Multicast: 512

IPv4 Scale

  • EP MAC: 48,000

  • EP IPv4: 48,000

  • EP IPv6: 0

  • LPM: 38,000

  • Policy: 60,000

  • Multicast: 8,000

Has the same scalability numbers as IPv4 scale on earlier switches.

Note

  • Because the IPv4 forwarding scale profile policy does not support IPv6 configurations, all IPv6 configurations must be removed from switches configured with the IPv4 forwarding scale profile policy.

  • Because the high dual stack profile has reduced-scale support for contract policies (8,000), the contracts scale must be reduced accordingly prior to deploying that profile.

  • Before migrating to minimal tenant multicast scale leaf profiles, such as high dual stack, we recommend that you first disable Layer 2 IGMP snooping-, Layer 3 IGMP-, and PIM-related configurations to prevent having a stale multicast state in your hardware.

  • Applying a scale profile to a node requires a manual reload of that node. Any unsupported switches are ignored. For a list of supported switches, see Supported Platforms for Forwarding Scale Profile Policies.

  • VPCs associated with different scale profile settings are not supported. The VPC members must be configured with the same scale profile settings.

Supported Platforms for Forwarding Scale Profile Policies

The forwarding scale profile policy is only supported on the following switches:

  • Cisco Nexus 9300-EX Series switches

  • N9K-C9348GC-FXP

  • N9K-C93108TC-FX

  • N9K-C93180YC-FX

Configuring the Forwarding Scale Profile Policy Using the NX-OS-Style CLI

Before you begin

The Forwarding Scale Profile policy provides different scalability options. For more information on the scalability options, see the Forwarding Scale Profile Policy Overview section in the chapter for your Cisco APIC release.

The forwarding scale profile policy requires supported switches. For a list of supported switches, see the Supported Platforms for Forwarding Scale Profile Policies section in the chapter for your Cisco APIC release.


Note

  • The switches that support the forwarding scale profile policy must be manually reloaded after the forwarding scale profile policy is applied.

  • Changing the scale profile for individual members of a VPC is not allowed. If members of the same VPC are associated with different leaf profiles, then a new leaf profile should be created with both members and the scale profile applied to it.

This section demonstrates how to configure the forwarding scale profile policy using the NX-OS-style CLI.

Procedure

  Command or Action Purpose
Step 1

configure

Example:

apic1# configure

Enters global configuration mode.

Step 2

no scale-profile name

Example:

apic1(config)# scale-profile testFwdScaleProf

Defines the scale-profile policy.

Step 3

profile-type {dual-stack | high-dual-stack | high-lpm | high-policy | ipv4 }

Example:

apic1(config-scale-profile)# profile-type ipv4

Sets the Forwarding Scale profile type.

Step 4

exit

Example:

apic1(config-scale-profile)# exit

Returns back to global configuration.

Step 5

template leaf-policy-group leaf_group_name

Example:

apic1(config)# template leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp

Defines the leaf policy group.

Step 6

scale-profile name

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-policy-group)# scale-profile testFwdScaleProf

Configures the relation between the scale-profile policy and the leaf policy group.

Note 

The switches that support the forwarding scale profile policy must be manually reloaded after the forwarding scale profile policy is applied. For a list of supported switches, see the Supported Platforms for Forwarding Scale Profile Policies section in the chapter for your Cisco APIC release.

Step 7

exit

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-policy-group)# exit

Returns back to global configuration.

Step 8

leaf-profile leaf_profile_name

Example:

apic1(config)# leaf-profile sampleLeafProf

Configures a leaf profile.
Step 9

leaf-group leaf_group_name

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-profile)# leaf-group sampleLeafGrp

Specifies a group of leaf switches.
Step 10

leaf leaf_group_number

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-profile)# leaf 201

Adds leaf switches to the leaf group.
Step 11

leaf-policy-group leaf_policy_group_name

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-group)# leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp

Specifies the leaf policy group to be associated to the leaf switches.
Step 12

exit

Example:

apic1(config-leaf-policy-group)# exit

Exits command mode.

Step 13

[show] running-config

Example:


apic1(config)# show running-config
# Command: show running-config scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
# Time: Thu Jul 27 22:31:29 2017
  scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
    profile-type ipv4
    exit
apic1(config-scale-profile)#

Displays the current running configuration.

Step 14

[show] template leaf-policy-group

Example:

Displays the current running configuration.

Examples

This example shows how to configure the IPv4 scale profile policy. 


apic1# configure
apic1(config)# scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
apic1(config-scale-profile)# profile-type ipv4
apic1(config-scale-profile)# exit
apic1(config)# template leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
apic1(config-leaf-policy-group)# scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
apic1(config-leaf-policy-group)# exit
apic1(config)# leaf-profile sampleLeafProf
apic1(config-leaf-profile)# leaf-group sampleLeafGrp
apic1(config-leaf-profile)# leaf 201
apic1(config-leaf-group)# leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
apic1(config-leaf-group)# show running-config scale-profile testFwdScaleProf 
# Command: show running-config scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
# Time: Thu Jul 27 22:31:29 2017
  scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
    profile-type ipv4
    exit
apic1(config-leaf-group)# show running-config template leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
# Command: show running-config template leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
# Time: Tue Aug  1 11:19:44 2017
  template leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
    scale-profile testFwdScaleProf
    exit
apic1(config-leaf-group)# show running-config leaf-profile sampleLeafProf
# Command: show running-config leaf-profile sampleLeafProf
# Time: Tue Aug  1 11:19:58 2017
  leaf-profile sampleLeafProf
    leaf-group sampleLeafGrp
      leaf 201
      leaf-policy-group samplePolicyGrp
      exit