Cisco APIC Layer 2 Networking Configuration Guide, Release 3.x and Earlier

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Updated:
January 19, 2024

Chapter: New and Changed

New and Changed

This chapter contains the following section:

New and Changed Information

The following table provides an overview of the significant changes to this guide for this release. The table does not provide an exhaustive list of all changes made to the guide or of the new features up to this release.

Table 1. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 3.2(5)

Feature

Decription

Where Documented

Support in flood for encapsulation for domains with VXLAN encapsulation

You can configure flood in encapsulation for endpoint groups (EPGs) attached to virtual domains with VXLAN encapsulation. Previously, only VLANs were supported for flood in encapsulation for virtual domains.

Flood in encapsulation is used to limit flooding traffic inside a bridge domain to a single encapsulation. You configure flood in encapsulation when you create or modify a bridge domain or an EPG.

Bridging

Table 2. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 3.2(1)

Feature

Description

Where Documented

Enhanced Breakout Support on Profiled QSFP Ports on N9K-C93180YC-FX Switches

Support is added for 100 Gigabit (Gb) (4X25Gb) and 40Gb (4X10Gb) dynamic breakouts on profiled QSFP ports on the N9K-C93180YC-FX switch (in ACI mode).

Dynamic Breakout Ports

Enhanced Port Profile Support on N9K-C93180YC-FX Switches

Support is added on the N9K-C93180YC-FX switch for port profiles to change ports from uplink to downlink or downlink to uplink.

Configuring Port Profiles to Change Ports from Uplink to Downlink or Downlink to Uplink

Fibre Channel NPV

Support for FC traffic over the Fabric

Fibre Channel Connectivity

Cloning Port Configurations

Support for cloning port configurations is added. After you configure a leaf switch port, you can copy the configuration and apply it to other ports.

Access Interfaces

Flood in encapsulation enhancements

Information is added about protocols supporting the Flood in Encapsulation option for bridge domains or EPGs.

Bridging

Table 3. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 3.1(2)

Feature

Description

Where Documented

Enhanced Breakout Support on Profiled QSFP Ports on N9K-C9336C-FX2 Switches

Support is added for 100Gb (4X25Gb) and 40Gb(4X10Gb) dynamic breakouts on profiled QSFP ports on the N9K-C9336C-FX2 switch (in ACI mode).

Dynamic Breakout Ports

Table 4. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 3.1(1)

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

Disabling IP Learning per Bridge Domain

IP learning per bridge domain is disabled when two hosts are connected as active and standby hosts to the Cisco ACI switches. The MAC learning still occurs in the hardware but the IP learning only occurs from the ARP/GARP/ND processes. This enhancement allows for flexible deployments, for example, firewalls or local gateways.

Bridge Domain Options

MACsec

MACsec provides MAC-layer encryption over wired networks by using out-of-band methods for encryption keying. The MACsec Key Agreement (MKA) Protocol provides the required session keys and manages the required encryption keys.

MACsec

Flood in Encapsulation

Beginning with Cisco ACI Release 3.1(1) on the Cisco ACI switches with the next generation ASICs and onwards, all protocols are flooded in encapsulation. Multiple EPGs are now supported under one bridge domain with an external switch. When two EPGs share the same BD and the Flood in Encapsulation option is turned on, the EPG flooding traffic does not reach the other EPG. It overcomes the challenges of using the Cisco ACI switches with the Virtual Connect (VC) tunnel network.

Flood in Encapsulation

Basic GUI topics removed

Basic GUI procedures are no longer supported

The following topics have been removed:

  • Creating a Tenant, VRF, and Bridge Domain Using the Basic GUI

  • Configuring an Enforced Bridge Domain Using the Basic GUI

  • Deploying FCoE vFC Ports Using the Basic GUI

  • Creating a VSAN Domain Using the APIC Basic GUI

  • Configuring 802.1Q Tunnel Interfaces Using the Basic GUI

  • Configuring Dynamic Breakout Ports with the Basic GUI

Breakout Support for 100Gb (4X25Gb) Ports on N9K-C93180LC-EX Switches

Support is added for 100Gb (4X25Gb) dynamic breakouts on the N9K-C93180LC-EX switch (in ACI mode).

Dynamic Breakout Ports

Table 5. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 3.0(1)

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

Q-in-Q Encapsulation Mapping for EPGs

With this release, you can map double-tagged VLAN traffic ingressing on a regular interface, PC, or VPC to an EPG.

Q-in-Q Encapsulation Mapping for EPGs

Enforced Bridge Domain

Enforced bridge domain is supported, in which an endpoint in a subject endpoint group (EPG) can only ping subnet gateways within the associated bridge domain.

With this configuration enabled, you can create a global exception list of IP addresses which can ping any subnet gateway.

Enforced Bridge Domain in Bridging

Configuring Leaf Switch Using Port Association

Using these GUI steps, you can now choose the port and then apply a policy to it.

 Configuring Leaf Switch Physical Ports Using Port Association
Table 6. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 2.3(1) Release

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

802.1Q Tunnel enhancements

Now you can configure ports on core-switches for use in Dot1q Tunnels for multiple customers. You can also define access VLANs to distinguish between customers consuming the corePorts. You can also disable MAC learning on Dot1q Tunnels.

802.1Q Tunnels

Symmetric hashing

Symmetric hashing is now supported on port channels.

Port Channels

Reflective relay (802.1Qbg)

Reflective relay transfers switching for virtual machines out of the host server to an external network switch. It provides connectivity between VMs on the same physical server and the rest of the network. It allows policies that you configure on the Cisco APIC to apply to traffic between the VMs on the same server.

Access Interfaces

Traffic Storm control Unicast/Multicast differentiation

Allows you to configure Storm Control on each traffic type separately.

Traffic Storm Control

Table 7. New Features and Changed Information in Cisco APIC Release 2.2(2)

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

Document Reorganization

The topics in this guide were collected from Cisco APIC Basic Configuration Guide and the following APIC articles:

  • Cisco ACI and 802.1Q Tunnels

  • Cisco APIC EPG Deployment to Specific Ports Using Domains, Attach Entity Profiles, and VLANs

  • Cisco APIC and Traffic Storm Control

  • Cisco APIC and Dynamic Breakout Ports

  • Cisco APIC and Proxy ARP

  • Deploying an EPG on a Specific Port Using Cisco APIC

Cisco APIC Layer 2 Configuration Guide

Table 8. New Features and Changed Behavior in Cisco APIC 2.2 (1) Release

Feature

Description

Where Documented

FCoE over FEX

You can now configure FCoE over FEX ports.

FCoE Connections

CDP supported in policies on interfaces to FEX devices

In this release, support is added for CDP on interfaces to FEX devices.

Access Interfaces

802.1Q Tunnels

You can now configure 802.1Q tunnels on edge ports to enable point-to-multi-point tunneling of Ethernet frames in the fabric, with Quality of Service (QoS) priority settings.

802.1Q Tunnels

Dynamic Breakout Ports

To enable a 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) leaf switch port to be connected to 4-10GE capable (downlink) devices (connected with Cisco 40-Gigabit to 4X10-Gigabit breakout cables), you configure the 40GE port to breakout (split) to 4-10GE ports.

Dynamic Breakout Ports.

Table 9. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 2.1(1) Release

Revision to topic Configuring a Traffic Storm Control Policy Using the CLI

The topic was replaced with a new topic that uses the NX-OS Style CLI.

See Configuring a Traffic Storm Control Policy Using the NX-OS Style CLI in Traffic Storm Control.

Table 10. New Features and Changed Information for Cisco APIC 2.0(2) Release

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

Revision to topic Configuring a Traffic Storm Control Policy Using the Advanced GUI.

Advanced GUI revisions have changed the navigation path to the Storm Control Interface Policy work pane.

Traffic Storm Control

Proxy ARP

Proxy ARP in Cisco ACI enables endpoints within a network or subnet to communicate with other endpoints without knowing the real MAC address of the endpoints. Proxy ARP is aware of the location of the traffic destination, and offers its own MAC address as the final destination instead.

Proxy ARP

Table 11. New Features and Changed Behavior in Cisco APIC for Cisco APIC Release 2.0(1)

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) support

An overview and configuration topics for implementing FCoE connectivity over the ACI fabric.

FCoE Connections

Table 12. New Features and Changed Behavior in Cisco APIC for Cisco APIC Release 1.3(1)

Feature or Change

Description

Where Documented

-

Removed object model CLI procedure and replaced with NX-OS-Style CLI procedures.

Creating AEP, Domains, and VLANs to Deploy an EPG on a Specific Port Using the NX-OS CLI

Deploying and EPG on a Specific Port with APIC Using the NX-OS Style CLI

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