VMware Integration
When integrating your VMware infrastructure into Cisco ACI, you have two options for deploying virtual networking:
▪ VMware vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS)
▪ Cisco Application Virtual Switch (AVS)
These two options provide similar basic virtual networking functionality; however, the AVS option provides additional capabilities, such as VXLAN and microsegmentation support.
Prerequisites for VMM Integration with AVS or VDS
The prerequisites for VMM integration with AVS or VDS are as follows:
▪ You need to decide whether to use VLAN or VXLAN encapsulation or multicast groups.
▪ A virtual machine manager must be already deployed, such as vCenter.
▪ The VMM must be accessible by the APIC through either the out-of-band or in-band management network.
▪ For Cisco AVS deployment, a vSphere Installation Bundle (VIB) must be installed on all hypervisor hosts to be added to the AVS.
▪ For a VXLAN deployment, you need to know whether intermediate devices have Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) snooping on or off by default.
Guidelines and Limitations for VMM Integration with AVS or VDS
The guidelines and limitations for VMM integration with AVS or VDS are as follows:
▪ When utilizing VLANs for VMM integration, whether with Cisco AVS or VMware VDS, the range of VLANs to be used for port groups must be manually allowed on any intermediate devices.
▪ For VMM integration with VLANs and the Resolution Immediacy setting On Demand or Immediate, there can be a maximum of one hop between a host and the compute node.
▪ For VMM integration with VXLAN, only the infrastructure VLAN needs to be allowed on all intermediate devices.
▪ For VMM integration with VXLAN, if the Infra bridge domain subnet is set as a querier, the intermediate devices must have IGMP snooping enabled for traffic to pass properly.
▪ To log in to the APIC GUI, choose Tenants > Infra > Networking > Bridge Domains > default > Subnets > 10.0.0.30/27.
▪ For VMM integration with VXLAN and UCS-B, IGMP snooping is enabled on the UCS-B by default. Therefore, you need to ensure that the querier IP address is enabled for the Infra bridge domain. The other option is to disable IGMP snooping on the UCS and disable the querier IP address on the Infra bridge domain.
ACI VMM Integration Workflow
Figure 6-6 illustrates the ACI VMM integration workflow steps.
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Publishing EPGs to a VMM Domain
This section details how to publish an existing EPG to a VMM domain. For an EPG to be pushed to a VMM domain, you must create a domain binding within the tenant EPG by following these steps:
Step 1. From the menu bar, choose Tenants > All Tenants.
Step 2. From the Work pane, choose the Tenant_Name.
Step 3. From the Navigation pane, choose Tenant_Name > Application Profiles > Application_Profile_Name > Application EPGs > Application_EPG_Name > Domains (VMs and bare-metal servers).
Step 4. From the Work pane, choose Actions > Add VM Domain Association.
Step 5. In the Add VM Domain Association dialog box, choose the VMM domain profile that you created previously. For Deployment and Resolution Immediacy, Cisco recommends keeping the default option, On Demand. This provides the best resource usage in the fabric by deploying policies to leaf nodes only when endpoints assigned to this EPG are connected. There is no communication delay or traffic loss when you keep the default selections.
Step 6. Click Submit. The EPG is now available as a port group to your VMM.
Connecting Virtual Machines to the Endpoint Group Port Groups on vCenter
To connect virtual machines to the endpoint group port groups on vCenter, do the following:
Step 1. Connect to vCenter by using the VMware VI Client.
Step 2. From the Host and Clusters view, right-click on your virtual machine and choose Edit Settings.
Step 3. Click on the network adapter and from the Network Connection drop-down box, choose the port group that corresponds to your EPG. It should appear in the format of TENANT | APPLICATION_PROFILE | EPG | VMM_DOMAIN_PROFILE.
If you do not see your Cisco ACI EPG in the Network Connection list, it means one of the following:
▪ The VM is running on a host that is not attached to the distributed switch managed by the APIC.
▪ There may be a communication between your APIC and vCenter either through the OOB or the INB management network.
Verifying VMM Integration with the AVS or VDS
The following sections describe how to verify that the Cisco AVS has been installed on the VMware ESXi hypervisor.
Verifying the Virtual Switch Status
To verify the virtual switch status, follow these steps:
Step 1. Log in to the VMware vSphere client.
Step 2. Choose Networking.
Step 3. Open the folder for the data center and click the virtual switch.
Step 4. Click the Hosts tab. The VDS Status and Status fields display the virtual switch status. Ensure that the VDS status is Up, which indicates that OpFlex communication has been established.
Verifying the vNIC Status
To verify the vNIC status, follow these steps:
Step 1. In the VMware vSphere client, click the Home tab.
Step 2. Choose Hosts and Clusters.
Step 3. Click the host.
Step 4. In the Configuration tab, select the Hardware panel and choose Networking.
Step 5. In the View field, click the vSphere Distributed Switch button.
Step 6. Click Manage Virtual Adapters. The vmk1 displays as a virtual adapter with an IP address.
Step 7. Click the newly created vmk interface to display the vmknic status.