Part 2: Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller - Create VXLAN EVPN Fabric (Greenfield Import)

Lab Objectives

• Configure the management network to allow reachability between NDFC and the switches
• Configure the Fabric Controller Service?in Nexus Dashboard
• Push the VXLAN EVPN Underlay configuration to the switches

Topology :

1 : Configure Management Network

I deploy an N9K in each site as a Management switch connecting all the MGMT interfaces of the Spines, Leafs and BGW. MGT-SW1 and MGT-SW2 are interconnected to Outside EVE-NG via the Cloud network. Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller deployed in VMWARE ESXI (see previous article) will manage the switches and create VXLAN EVPN fabric. Devices accessible via the ND management interface.

NDFC supports out-of-band and in-band switch management for VXLAN fabrics. I will manage the switches using management connections. The NDFC node and all N9Ks management interfaces are configured on the 192.168.1.0/24 management network, so there is no need to route between.

2: Nexus Dashborad Fabric Controller Service Setup

Step 1: https://<node-mgmt-ip> to open the GUI and enter the admin password and go to Fabric Controller Menu

Click to Get Started

Step 2: Go to Service Setup

You can operate a Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller instance in one of the following modes based on your requirements:

LAN: Useful for managing and configuring Cisco devices running NX-OS, IOS-XE, or IOS-XR operating systems, as well as other 3rd party devices. The Fabric Discovery option allows you to visualize and monitor your Cisco devices running NX-OS without having to configure them. This is a good option if you prefer configuring your devices through some other automated mechanism as well as using a traditional CLI configuration.

SAN: Useful for managing and configuring MDS switches and for defining connectivity between initiators and targets for FibreChannel (FC), FibreChannel over Ethernet (FCoE) and iSCSI protocols. Support is also available for integrations with other vendors such as VMware, EMC, HDS, Netapp, Pure Storage, HP and more !

By clicking in LAN new windows will open

Step 3: Select Fabric Management Basic and click next

• Fabric Management? Basic for Fabric Builder (at the very minimum)
• Fabric Management? Advanced for Performance Monitoring (optional) for SNMP-based performance monitoring (CPU, memory, traffic, temperature, interface, links) at the switch level and Endpoint Locator. The Endpoint Locator (EPL) feature allows real-time tracking of endpoints within a data center. The tracking includes tracing the network life history of an endpoint and getting insights into the trends that are associated with endpoint additions, removals, moves, and so on. An endpoint is anything with at least one IP address (IPv4 and\or IPv6) and MAC address. EPL feature is also capable of displaying MAC-Only endpoints. By default, MAC-Only endpoints are not displayed. An endpoint can be a virtual machine (VM), container, bare-metal server, service appliance and so on. PL is supported for VXLAN BGP EVPN fabric deployments only in the Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller LAN fabric installation mode

Step 4: Check summary and click Submit

Please wait for a few minutes for services to be completely initialized. After a popup will appear :

Step 5: Now we have the Fabric controller menu Manage and Analyze

3. Building VXLAN EVPN fabrics

NDFC available fabrics types include:

• Data Center VXLAN EVPN:?Fabric for a VXLAN EVPN deployment with Nexus 9000 and 3000 switches.
• Enhanced Classic LAN:?Fabric for a fully automated 3-tier Classic LAN deployment with Nexus 9000 and 7000 switches.
• IPFM:?Fabric for a fully automated deployment of IP Fabric for Media Network with Nexus 9000 switches.
• Others:?Including BGP Fabric, Routed Fabric and more.

Once a Fabric of a certain type is created simply add switches, set roles and ‘Recalculate and Deploy’ to configure the switches.

Step 1: Now we ll create the 2 fabrics. This section describes creating a Data Center VXLAN fabric, adding switches to the fabric, defining roles for the fabric. This step is to build the VXLAN underlay.

Step 2: Give Fabric Name and Click on Choose Fabric?:

Step 3: Select Data Center VXLAN EVPN

Step 4: Select Data Center VXLAN EVPN

Give BGP AS number and leave the other parameters pre-filled by default, and click on the replication menu

The only mandatory fields are the following Fabric Name and BGP ASN.

Step 5: Configure multicast BUM

Screen shot displays the Replication tab where Multicast is the default value for the Replication Mode field.

Step 6: Underlay IGP and loopback configuration

Step 7: In advanced tab, desactivate OAM feature otherwise the install could fail?

Step 8: By clicking in save, first fabric is created

Step 9: After creating a fabric, we can import switches using the Add Switches page and supplying the necessary credentials. Reachability exists between NDFC and these switches via the management network.

Simply add a 'seed switch' IP address and credentials and Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller will discover other switches connected to it, allowing you to add multiple switches to a fabric in one step using the same seed switch credentials.

Greenfield Import

‘Preserve Config = NO’ indicates a greenfield import. All existing configurations except the management IP, Default Gateway, and Boot Variables will be erased for fresh configurations to be pushed from NDFC going forward. All switches can now be managed from scratch.

In case of a greenfield addition of a Nexus 3000 or 9000 switch, by default, NDFC learns the basic intent from the switch, performs a write erase, and reloads followed by restoration only of the basic intent on that switch.

Brownfield Import

‘Preserve Config = YES’ indicates a brownfield import. All existing configurations will be preserved.

In a Data Center VXLAN EVPN Fabric with brownfield import, all configurations in the switches are learnt (and preserved) and captured in NDFC. Thereafter, the switches can be incrementally managed from NDFC. The prerequisite is that the fabric and the imported switches must be a fully functional fabric with configurations per Cisco best practices.?It is recommended to take a backup of the switch configurations and save them before migration.

?For this first lab i choose Greenfield Import deployment, after click Discover Switches we have a popup to confirm.

Note: Brownfield Import will be done on another lab.

Step 10: Discovering the switches

I have to modify the password of switch so that ndfc accepts them

Now it’s Ok and we have the switche's S/N, model and version, we can now select them and add them to the fabric created previously. By clicking on Add Switches, the switches will be configured by NDFC to be part of the fabric

Step 11: Switches configuration deployment

Based on the switch roles, and different configuration parameters, switch configurations are generated.

We can preview the configurations, before it is deployed to the switches.

After clicking Deploy all we can see progress in the deployment of configs on the switches

Click on close

Step 12: Check Fabric overview

Step 1: Check Fabric topology

Step 14: Underlay configurations validation

End of the Part 2. Follow Part 3 for VXLAN EVPN Multisite implementation

Author:?S. Oumar NDIAYE CCIE #63716 – Cisco Champion 2023-2024

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/dcn/whitepapers/managing-and-monitoring-vxlan-evpn-fabrics-using-cisco-ndfc.html

https://ndfc-lab.ciscolive.com/lab/pod7/intro/landing