This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

Cisco DCNM supports one click vPC pairing for traditional vPC deployments that employ a physical peer link and vPC fabric peering option. vPC fabric peering allows two switches in a VXLAN EVPN fabric to be configured as a vPC pair, without using a physical peer link. This feature is supported only with the NX-OS 9.2(3) release, on selected platforms. For supported Nexus Switches, see Cisco Nexus 9000 Configuration Guide.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

A new fabric template Easy_Fabric_eBGP is available for support of spine-leaf based routed fabrics. In the fabric built with this template, eBGP is used as the routing protocol for the underlay connectivity between the spine-leaf network. This fabric supports the following 2 fabric types:

• The eBGP Routed Fabric provides IP connectivity and has no overlay support. The roles that are supported in this fabric are leaf, spine, and border. This is to support traditional MSDC network deployments.

• A VXLAN EVPN based fabric that employs eBGP for the underlay connectivity and eBGP EVPN for overlay peering. This fabric supports all the features of a traditional VXLAN EVPN based Easy fabric other than EVPN Multi-Site.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

Cisco DCNM supports the following enhancements for the VXLAN EVPN based Brownfield migration:

• Switches with the Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I4(8b) and higher images.

• Tenant Routed Multicast (TRM) feature as the fabric overlay multicast protocol.

• Border Spine and Border Gateway Spine roles.

• BGP, OSPF, and ISIS authentication.

• Brownfield migration of VXLAN EVPN fabrics created via the bottom-up auto-configuration deployment method, into Easy fabrics managed via the fabric builder.

  After the migration, the Cisco DCNM can manage the fabric underlay and overlay networks.

• Bidirectional-PIM (bidir-PIM) feature is supported for the Brownfield migration. The bidir mode supports up to 2 rendezvous points (RP).

• During the brownfield migration, the overlay config-profiles are deployed to the switches, and the original configuration CLIs are removed if the switches in the brownfield migration have the following Cisco NX-OS images:

  • Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(6) or later

  • Cisco NX-OS Release 9.2(3) or later

Note	If the switches do not meet these NX-OS release requirements, the brownfield migration behavior is same as the Cisco DCNM Release 11.1(1).

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric, and Classic LAN Deployments. This feature is not available for IPFM installations.

From Cisco DCNM Release 11.2(1), you can install a Cisco DCNM Compute node using an ISO or OVA of a regular Cisco DCNM image. It can be deployed directly on a bare metal using an ISO or a VM using the OVA. During the OVA/ISO installation, select Compute as the choice for installing of the compute node. The web installer works in a similar manner to complete the installation process. On a Compute node, you will not find DCNM processes or Postgres database; it runs a minimum set of services that are required to provision and monitor applications.

The specifications of the compute node must be minimum of 16 vCPUs, 64G RAM, 500G hard disk. To install a compute node, see Cisco DCNM Installation Guide for your deployment type.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric, and Classic LAN Deployments.

Cisco DCNM allows you to download applications from the corresponding Cisco App Center. Applications such as Network Insights Resources (NIR) and Network Insights Advisor (NIA) are available for the Cisco DCNM OVA/ISO install modes. For more information about the Network Insights Applications, see Cisco Network Insights for Data Center.

Note	You must enable Compute Cluster before installing the applications. The applications that are installed via the Cisco App Center will not work if the compute cluster is configured after installing the applications.

For instructions about compute clusters, refer to the Applications chapter in the Cisco DCNM Configuration Guides for your Cisco DCNM Deployment type.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

The pending and side-by-side comparison tabs in the Config Preview window are enhanced. The side-by-side comparison tab shows the comparison between Running Configuration and Intent Configuration with leading space indentations, which signify the configuration hierarchy.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

In addition to the local DHCP server, Cisco DCNM provides support for an external DHCP server for bootstrap or automated day-0 bring-up of switches.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment.

For bootstrap or automated day-0 bring-up of switches in a fabric, when using the local DHCP server, DCNM now supports multiple DHCP subnet scopes within a given fabric with the bootstrap option. This allows switches in different racks within a fabric to be in different layer-3 IP subnets. You can specify one subnet scope per line in a text box for DHCP Multi-Subnet Scope. You can add multi-subnets if the Local DHCP server is enabled.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for Classic LAN Deployment.

From Cisco DCNM Release 11.2(1), while creating jobs on Configure > Backup > Switch Configuration > Archive Jobs > Archive Jobs > Add Job, you can apply VRFs for all the selected devices simultaneously. You can either apply the Management VRF or Default VRF.

You can also modify the VRF type while modifying the Job.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for LAN Fabric Deployment and Cisco DCNM Classic LAN Deployment.

When you install Cisco DCNM, you can optionally provide an IPv6 address while configuring the management settings, which is for the eth0 interface. You can access the Cisco DCNM Web UI using the specified IPv6 address. You can also specify an IPv6 destination address for Event Forwarding and Alarm Forwarding.

Note	This is a preview only feature. We recommend that you use this feature only in Lab setups, and not in production environments.

This preview functionality allows cloud connectivity from a Cisco DCNM provisioned VXLAN EVPN fabric to the Microsoft Azure public cloud. Layer-3 connectivity is provided, so that workloads on-premise can seamlessly and securely communicated with workloads in the Azure cloud. The connectivity is provisioned via the Cisco Cloud Services Router 1000v Series that is managed by Cisco DCNM. VXLAN EVPN is employed for the control plane and VXLAN is employed for the data plane. Both the control plane and the data plane are established over an IPsec tunnel.

This feature is available on Cisco DCNM for SAN Deployment, only.

Cisco DCNM supports the following enhancements for SAN insights feature:

• Compact GBP transport for better I/O performance and improved San Insight scalability.

• From Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 8.4(1), SAN insights is supported on the following switches:

  • Cisco MDS 9396T 32 Gbps 96-Port Fibre Channel Switch (DS-C9396T-K9)

  • Cisco MDS 9148T 32 Gbps 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch (DS-C9148T-K9)

Cisco DCNM 11.2(1) supports the following new Cisco MDS hardware.