Only 2 peer devices max can be part of same vPC domain A vPC is a L2 port type: switchport mode trunk or switchport mode accessĭomain containing the 2 peer devices. The combined port-channel between the vPC peers and the downstream device. Virtual device contexts (VDCs) requires LAN_ADVANCED_SERVICES_PKG license. Layer 3 features like Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol or Intermediate-System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol require LAN_ENTERPRISE_SERVICES_PKG license. Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) are also included in this base license.
VPC feature is included in the base NX-OS software license. This is when the nexus 7k came on the market way back in 2008 VPC technology is supported since NX-OS 4.1.3. NX-OS Version and Licence requirement for VPC Withing a vPC domain, user can connect access devices in multiple ways: vPC-attached connections leveraging active/active behavior with port-channel, active/standby connectivity using spanning-tree, single attachment without spanning-tree running on the access device. Spanning-Tree is used as a fail safe mechanism and does not dictate L2 path for vPC-attached devices. Any potential control plane issues stay local to the peer device and does not propagate or impact the other peer device.įrom a Spanning-Tree standpoint, vPC eliminates STP blocked ports and uses all available uplink bandwidth.
Allows dual-homed servers to operate in active-active mode.
vPC belongs to Multichassis EtherChannel family of technology.Ī virtual port channel (vPC) allows links that are physically connected to two different Cisco Nexus 5,7,9K Series devices to appear as a single port channel to a third device. VPC is a virtualization technology that presents both Cisco Nexus 5,7,9K Series paired devices as a unique Layer 2 logical node to access layer devices or endpoints. This might become a long post so I may split it into two if the needs must. In this post we are going to discuss the design and best practices of VPC.