Nexus 1000v

VSMs are ideally deployed as a pair with active and redundant VSM.

So even if the primary VSM fails, the backup VSM can take over.

No

Primary VSM——————-Supervisor

Backup  VSM——————-Redundant supervisor

VEM 1—————————–Line Card 1

VEM 2 —————————-Line Card 2

Port profile defines a set of attributes that can include the following:

a. VLAN

b, Port channels

c. Private VLAN

d. ACL

e. Port security

f. NetFlow

g. rate limiting

h. QoS Marking

The network administrator defines port profiles in the VSM. When the VSM connects to vCenter Server, it creates a distributed virtual switch (DVS) and each port profile is published as a port group on the DVS. The server administrator can then apply those port groups to specific uplinks, VM vNICs,  or management ports, such as virtual switch interfaces or VM kernel NICs.

VEM Virtual Ports

Three types of vNIC in VMWare
1. Virtual NIC

2. vEth port
Represent a port on Nexus 1000v virtual switch.
These ports are assigned to port group.

3. lvEth port
Dynamically selected for vEth ports on the host.

Further, there are 3 types of Virtual NICs.
1. vnic
Part of the VM and represents the physical port of the host which is plugged into the switch

2. vmknic
Used by the hypervisor for management,VMotion,iSCSI,NFS and other network access needed by kernel.

3. vswif
VMWare service console network interface, the Service Console network interface.
The vswif interface is used as VMWare management port; these interface types map to a veth port within Nexus 1000v


VSM to VEM Communication

1. Layer 3 Control Mode

VEMs can be in different subnet than the VSM and also from each other in Layer 3 control mode.

Each VEM needs a designated VMkernel NIC interface that is attached to the VEM that communicates with the VSM.
This interface which is called Layer 3 Control vmknic must have a system profile applied to it so the VEM can enable it before contacting the VSM.

2. Layer 2 Control Mode

VEM and VSM are in the same subnet in the Layer 2 control mode.