Cisco UCS and Vmware Interfaces (Vnics) HA Design Considerations

Hi Guys ,

I was going through the Cisco UCS B-Series and  Vmware Designing ,Here are the few points which need to be considered when Building Cisco UCS and Vmware HA.

As the UCS is supporting HA/Failover  in Vnics with Fail-over feature in Vnic or Vnic tempalte which enables fail-over between FI-A and FI-B via IOMs. In this case the fail-over will be managed by the UCS Vnics. Form the Vmware Keep it simple NO Fail-over required as the Vnics fail-over is ENABLED. VNIC Fail-over feature should be supported by your Mezzanine Card [ CNA ] otherwise the Fail-over will not occur. Not all the Cisco UCS CNAs support Fail-over . You need to check the Datasheet to know which CNS is supporting the Fail-over feature.

Non Vnic Failover support Scenario with UCS and Vmware #

If your CNA doesn’t Support Fail-over then you can build the HA by Having 2 VNICs in the UCS , 1st VNIC mapped to FI-A and 2ndVNIC  FI-B without the Failover Feature ENABLED. then from the Vmware side Make on  1st VNIC Interface Active and Other  VNIC Interface as STANDBY. In this case if any fail-over occurs vmware will manage the Fail-over not the UCS , as the UCS CNA is not fail-over supported.

Here is the Complete Guide #

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/solutions/CVD/Aug2013/CVD-VirtualizationWithCiscoUCSNexus1000VandVMwareDesignGuide-AUG13.pdf