Contents


First Published:

Last Updated:

Text Part Number:


About Cisco Enterprise NFVIS

Cisco Enterprise Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure Software (Cisco Enterprise NFVIS) is a Linux-based infrastructure software designed to help service providers and enterprises dynamically deploy virtualized network functions, such as a virtual router, firewall, and WAN acceleration, on a supported Cisco device. There is no need to add a physical device for every network function, and you can use automated provisioning and centralized management to eliminate costly truck rolls.

Cisco Enterprise NFVIS provides a Linux-based virtualization layer to the Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization (ENFV) solution.

Cisco ENFV Solution Overview

Cisco ENFV solution helps you convert your critical network functions into software, making it possible to deploy network services in minutes across dispersed locations. It provides a fully integrated platform that can run on top of a diverse network of both virtual and physical devices with the following primary components:

  • Cisco Enterprise NFVIS

  • VNFs

  • Unified Computing System (UCS) and Enterprise Network Compute System (ENCS) hardware platforms

  • Digital Network Architecture Center (DNAC)

For more details on the Cisco ENFV solution, see the Cisco Enterprise Network Functions Virtualization Solution Overview.

System Requirements

The following resources are required for a standalone Cisco Enterprise NFVIS:

  • One CPU core

  • 2 GB RAM

  • 20 GB storage


Note

More memory and disk space are required to be added to the system, depending on VM deployments.

Software Upgrade

The Cisco Enterprise NFVIS upgrade image is available as a .nfvispkg file. Currently, downgrade is not supported.

For more details on the software upgrade, see the Upgrading Cisco Enterprise NFVIS section in the Cisco Enterprise Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure Software Configuration Guide.


Note

NFVIS 3.6.2 supports upgrade from NFVIS 3.5.1-FC4, NFVIS3.5.2-FC2, or NFVIS 3.6.1-FC3 to NFVIS 3.6.2-FC3.

Supported Programs and Platforms for Cisco ENFV

The following are the only supported programs and platforms for Cisco ENFV and any other program or platform will not be supported.

Supported Programs

The following table lists only the supported programs for Cisco ENFV

Programs

Release Version

Cisco Enterprise NFVIS

3.5.1-FC4

Cisco ESA

1.0.78

Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Enterprise Module (APIC-EM)

1.4.1.1159 and later

Cisco Prime Infrastructure Software

3.1.0.0.132 and later

Device-Pack-10-PI3.1-94.ubf and later

PI_3_1_6-1.0.14.ubf and later

Cisco Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) vBranch Core Function Pack

1.0

Supported Platforms and Firmware

The following table table lists only the supported platforms and firmware for Cisco ENFV


Note

The listed platforms will be installed with HUU 3.1.4 and CIMC 3.1 (4.20170327095406).

Platform

Firmware

Version

ENCS 5406, ENCS 5408, and ENCS 5412

BIOS

1.2

CIMC

3.1(4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

WAN Port Driver

1.63, 0x80000e2f

LAN Port Driver

5.04 0x800027d4 1.1256.0

FPGA

1.5

UCS-E160S-M3/K9

BIOS

UCSEM3_1.0 (Build Date: 05/27/2016)

CIMC

3.1 (4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

UCS-E140S-M2/K9

BIOS

UCSES.1.5.0.5 (Build Date: 02/03/2016)

CIMC

3.1 (4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

UCS-E160D-M2/K9

BIOS

UCSED.2.5.0.3 (Build Date: 04/10/2015)

CIMC

3.1 (4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

UCS-E180D-M2/K9

BIOS

UCSED.2.5.0.3 (Build Date: 04/10/2015)

CIMC

3.1 (4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

UCS-C220-M4

BIOS

UCSED.2.5.0.3 (Build Date: 04/10/2015)

CIMC

3.1 (4.20170327095406)

HUU

3.1.4

Supported Cisco VMs

The following table lists supported Cisco VMs.


Note

Third party VMs and Windows and Linux operating systems are also supported.

VM

Version

Cisco ISRv

16.03.03 and later

16.05.01 and later

Cisco ASAv

961 and later

Cisco vWAAS

6.3.0-b-185 and later

Cisco NGFWv

6.2.0-362 and later

Supported Features in Cisco Enterprise NFVIS Release 3.5.2

  • Cisco Enterprise NFV Portal—A graphical interface that helps you configure almost all features.

  • Cisco Network Plug-n-Play Support—A unified approach to provision enterprise networks comprised of Cisco routers, switches, and wireless devices with a near zero touch deployment experience.

  • Managing VM Operations—Start, stop, and restart VMs as required using the Cisco Enterprise NFV Portal or REST or NETCONF APIs.

  • VM Lifecycle Management—You can register VMs, deploy VMs, and create multiple flavors of a VM using APIs or the Cisco Enterprise NFVIS Portal.

  • VM Network Management and Monitoring

  • VM OVA Packaging—Supports deployment of VMs through uploading of OVA packages for Cisco supplied VMs, third party VMs, and for supported Windows and Linux operating systems. OVA packages must be created according to the Cisco Enterprise NFVIS packaging specification. For detailed information, see the following Cisco document:

    http:/​/​www.cisco.com/​c/​en/​us/​td/​docs/​routers/​nfvis/​user_guide/​nfvis-config-guide/​nfvis-user-guide_​chapter_​0110.html

  • Service Chaining of VMs—A set of network services in the form of VMs connecting virtual networks. Cisco Enterprise NFVIS supports service chaining of two or more VMs by connecting two or more virtual networks where the VM is running in L2 bridge mode. Service chaining is also implemented by one VM configured to perform packet diversion to another VM.

  • Self-signed and Third Party Certificates—You can use the default self-signed certificate or generate CM certificates.

  • Single WAN IP Deployment—A single WAN IP deployment can be considered when the Cisco ENCS is preconfigured at the corporate main office with the service provider's WAN IP address, and shipped to the branch office for quick deployment.

  • Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) Session—This feature helps you analyze network traffic passing through interfaces or VLANs by using SPAN sessions.

  • vBranch High Availability—This solution uses the Hot Standby Router Protocol (HSRP), a default gateway redundancy, which allows the network to recover from the failure of the device acting as the default gateway for the LAN side end points.

  • Resetting Factory Default

  • Event Notifications—Cisco Enterprise NFVIS generates event notifications for key events. A NETCONF client can subscribe to these notifications for monitoring the progress of configuration activation and the status change of the system and VMs.

  • Packet Capture Support—This feature helps to capture all packets being transmitted and received over physical and virtual network interface controllers (physical port and vNIC) for analysis.

Limitations and Restrictions

  • The Cisco Enterprise NFVIS portal cannot be used to configure the switch firmware version running on the Cisco 5400 ENCS. The Cisco ENCS switch can be configured using the switch CLIs or APIs.

  • The current switch firmware version in Cisco Enterprise NFVIS 3.5.1 running on the Cisco 5400 ENCS requires to run the commit command for each switch CLI to avoid configuration inconsistency between the host and the switch device.

    nfvis# config terminal
Entering configuration mode terminal
nfvis(config)# switch
nfvis(config-switch)# vlan 100
nfvis(config-switch-vlan)# commit
Commit complete.
nfvis(config-switch-vlan)# exit
nfvis(config-switch)# interface vlan 100
nfvis(config-switch-if)# ip address 192.168.1.1 255.255.255.0
nfvis(config-switch-if)# commit
Commit complete.
nfvis(config-switch-if)# end

Open and Resolved Bugs

The open and resolved bugs for a release are accessible through the Cisco Bug Search Tool. This web-based tool provides you with access to the Cisco bug tracking system, which maintains information about bugs and vulnerabilities in this product and other Cisco hardware and software products. Within the Cisco Bug Search Tool, each bug is given a unique identifier (ID) with a pattern of CSCxxNNNNN, where x is any letter (a-z) and N is any number (0-9). The bug IDs are frequently referenced in Cisco documentation, such as Security Advisories, Field Notices and other Cisco support documents. Technical Assistance Center (TAC) engineers or other Cisco staff can also provide you with the ID for a specific bug. The Cisco Bug Search Tool enables you to filter the bugs so that you only see those in which you are interested.

In addition to being able to search for a specific bug ID, or for all bugs in a product and release, you can filter the open and/or resolved bugs by one or more of the following criteria:

  • Last modified date

  • Status, such as fixed (resolved) or open

  • Severity

  • Support cases

You can save searches that you perform frequently. You can also bookmark the URL for a search and email the URL for those search results.

Using the Cisco Bug Search Tool

For more information about how to use the Cisco Bug Search Tool, including how to set email alerts for bugs and to save bugs and searches, see Bug Search Tool Help & FAQ.

Before You Begin

You must have a Cisco.com account to log in and access the Cisco Bug Search Tool. If you do not have one, you can register for an account.

Procedure
    Step 1   In your browser, navigate to the Cisco Bug Search Tool.
    Step 2   If you are redirected to a Log In page, enter your registered Cisco.com username and password and then, click Log In.
    Step 3   To search for a specific bug, enter the bug ID in the Search For field and press Enter.
    Step 4   To search for bugs related to a specific software release, do the following:
    1. In the Product field, choose Series/Model from the drop-down list and then enter the product name in the text field. If you begin to type the product name, the Cisco Bug Search Tool provides you with a drop-down list of the top ten matches. If you do not see this product listed, continue typing to narrow the search results.
    2. In the Releases field, enter the release for which you want to see bugs.

      The Cisco Bug Search Tool displays a preview of the results of your search below your search criteria.

    Step 5   To see more content about a specific bug, you can do the following:

    • Mouse over a bug in the preview to display a pop-up with more information about that bug.

    • Click on the hyperlinked bug headline to open a page with the detailed bug information.

    Step 6   To restrict the results of a search, choose from one or more of the following filters:

    Filter

    Description

    Modified Date

    A predefined date range, such as last week or last six months.

    Status

    A specific type of bug, such as open or fixed.

    Severity

    The bug severity level as defined by Cisco. For definitions of the bug severity levels, see Bug Search Tool Help & FAQ .

    Rating

    The rating assigned to the bug by users of the Cisco Bug Search Tool .

    Support Cases

    Whether a support case has been opened or not.

    Your search results update when you choose a filter.

    Open Caveats in Cisco Enterprise NFVIS Release 3.5.1

    Identifier

    Description

    CSCve05205

    vWLC is not supported in Cisco Enterprise NFVIS Release 3.5.1.
    CSCvd07840

    Users can hit Ctrl + D, and log into the system without changing the default admin password.
    CSCvd09013

    The SPAN monitor session configuration fails after the Cisco Enterprise NFVIS reboot.

    CSCvd35544

    Portal: vWAAS VM thick provision shall not be deployed on ENCS internal disk.
    CSCvd46091

    PnP: DHCP /DNS Discovery fails when ENCS is accessed through MGMT port.
    CSCvd92441

    vWAAS VM remains on Ext-HDD after NFVIS fresh-installation if vWAAS not undeployed before install.
    CSCvd56432

    A vNIC edit or swap operation reboots the VM without any warning.

    CSCvd66160

    Rebooting Cisco Enterprise NFVIS Release 3.5.1 cannot bring up the system.
    CSCvd66538

    An internal server error occurs when adding a network to a virtual machine.
    CSCvd68358

    The show system-monitoring vnf disk stats command output shows empty quotes for the 1min vnf disk option.
    CSCvd70575

    The VM packaging tool (nfvpt.py) in interactive mode does not accept more than one qcow2 image.
    CSCvd74535 The login attempt might fail during the first minute or so after the Cisco Enterprise NFVIS reboot.
    CSCvd78934

    The Factory Reset All option from the portal does not clear CLI history.

    CSCvd82114

    The SFP media type sometimes shows incorrect media type.
    CSCvd82208

    Sometimes PnP discovery fails after the BIOS/CIMC upgrade on the Cisco 5400 ENCS.

    CSCvd82278

    Traceback is observed with the show vm_lifecycle deployments all command.
    CSCvd83948

    The used disk space is marked as free in the VM Disk Allocation tab on the Resource Allocation page.
    CSCvd86530

    The sshfingerprint command does not return expected results.

    CSCvd56745

    Upgrade: Portal should timeout as soon as "upgrade now" is clicked and confirmed for upgrade.
    CSCvd74602

    rbac application timeout is seen and does not function when we have two wrong change role
    CSCvc95151

    User of Portal should not be allowed to login with Tacas+ pwd if same user exists in Tacas+ server
    CSCvd59126

    Tacacs Admin user is not able to edit the User roles of other users
    CSCve59448

    VNF unresponsive after NFVIS reboot
    CSCvd66160

    NFVIS: Reboot NFVIS cannot bring up the system - dracut-initqueue timeout
    CSCvd77124

    ENCS boot with ext-hdd
    CSCvc48407

    Operational API get deployment information for SRIOV interface show model virtio
    CSCvc91183

    Portal: image download action is not working
    CSCvd49343

    Get deployments API return partial data after 30 seconds after delete VM
    CSCvd68894

    Deploy ISRv intermittent fail: day0 is not applied
    CSCvd83948

    Resource Allocation page VM Disk Allocation tag does not count used disk space
    CSCvd83984

    Portal: Switch to Home page show memory as 0.00% even the number below is correct
    CSCvd98541

    Factory reset with all-except-images-connectivity option, the volumes is not cleaned
    CSCvd78951

    Factory reset warning message should mention vm and external datastore as well

    Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request

    For information on obtaining documentation, using the Cisco Bug Search Tool (BST), submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see What's New in Cisco Product Documentation.

    To receive new and revised Cisco technical content directly to your desktop, you can subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation RSS feed. RSS feeds are a free service.

    Copyright © 2017, Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.