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Centralized management: From vCenter, the configuration can be altered, and all hosts will change
simultaneously, eliminating configuration discrepancies.
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Features: vDS adds support for several needed features, such as private VLANs (PVLANs), Cisco
®
NetFlow monitoring, and enhanced single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV). vDS also adds support for Link
Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), which can be used in conjunction with the Cisco Application Policy
Infrastructure Controller (APIC) to define network endpoints and policies as part of a Cisco Application
Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI
™
) environment in the future.
Customers already invested in Cisco products and technologies have the opportunity to mitigate their risk further
by deploying familiar and tested Cisco UCS technology.
Solution Requirements
To configure a Cisco HyperFlex cluster to use vDS requires:
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A functional and healthy running Cisco HyperFlex cluster
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VMware vCenter Server appliance or Microsoft Windows–based VMware vCenter Server
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VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus licensing for the VMware ESXi hosts in the Cisco HyperFlex cluster
Known Constraints
Network components in a Cisco HyperFlex cluster that are related to the Cisco HyperFlex infrastructure cannot be
converted to vDS. The following network port groups, VMkernel ports, standard vSwitches, and uplinks must
remain in the default Cisco HyperFlex configuration and cannot be modified to use distributed switches:
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Standard vSwitch named vswitch-hx-inband-mgmt
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Standard vSwitch named vswitch-hx-storage-data
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Port groups named Storage Controller Management Network and Storage Controller Data Network
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VMkernel ports named Management Network and Storage Hypervisor Data Network
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Network adapter uplinks vmnic0, vmnic1, vmnic2, and vmnic3
The Cisco HyperFlex storage controller virtual machines must not have their guest virtual networking connections
migrated to the distributed switches. Their connections to the Storage Controller Management Network and
Storage Controller Data Network port groups must remain unaltered.