Cisco ACI Virtual Pod Release Notes, Release 5.1(3)
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Introduction
This document describes the features, bugs, and limitations for the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Virtual Pod (vPod) software.
Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) Virtual Pod (vPod) is a software-only solution that enables you to virtually extend the Cisco ACI fabric into bare-metal cloud environments and other remote locations.
You can deploy Cisco ACI vPod wherever you have at least two servers on which you can run the ESXi hypervisor. It allows you to use Cisco ACI Virtual Edge where you do not have a physical leaf.
Cisco ACI vPod and its components—a pair of virtual spines (vSpines), a pair of virtual leafs (vLeafs), and Cisco ACI Virtual Edge—run on the ESXi hypervisor. The vSpines and vLeafs handle control plane management, and the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge handles packet forwarding, policy enforcement, and all data plane management.
Cisco ACI vPod manages a data center defined by the VMware vCenter Server. You can have up to 32 instances of Cisco ACI Virtual Edge in each Cisco ACI vPod in the remote location. You use Cisco APIC to manage Cisco ACI vPod nodes and enforce Cisco ACI policy in the virtual data center.
Cisco ACI vPod communicates with a physical, on-premises pod or multipod over an interpod network. You configure the physical pod or multipod, the interpod connection, and Cisco ACI vPod in Cisco APIC. You then use the Cisco ACI vCenter plug-in, a Python script, or PowerCLI to deploy Cisco ACI vPod component virtual machines (VMs).
Cisco ACI vPod is compatible with any server hardware listed in the VMware Hardware Compatibility Guide on the VMware website.
Note: When you install or configure Cisco ACI vPod, you may see Cisco ACI vPod options labeled vPod.
Use this document in combination with the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) Release Notes, which you can view at the following location:
Release Notes are sometimes updated with new information about restrictions and bugs. See the following website for the most recent version of this document.
For more information about this product, see "Related Content."
Note: The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For the purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product.
| Date |
Description |
| February 1, 2021 |
Release 5.1(3) became available. |
There are no new features for this release.
Cisco ACI vPod Software Compatibility
Cisco ACI vPod and Cisco APIC Compatibility
For more information, see the Cisco APIC and ACI Virtual Edge Support Matrix.
VMware vSphere Compatibility
Cisco ACI Virtual Pod Release 5.1(3) is supported for Cisco APIC with releases 6.0, 6.5, and 6.7 of VMware vSphere.
Cisco ACI Virtualization Compatibility Matrix
Form more information, see the Cisco ACI Virtualization Compatibility Matrix.
Cisco APIC and ACI Virtual Edge Support Matrix
For more information, see the Cisco APIC and ACI Virtual Edge Support Matrix.
Changes in Behavior
There are no changes in behavior in this release.
Usage Guidelines
● Cisco ACI vPod Installation
We recommend that you install Cisco ACI vPod management components—vSpine and vLeaf pairs—on two different hosts. Deploy each pair on two separate hosts with one vSpine and one vLeaf on each host.
Each instance of Cisco ACI vPod supports two vSpines and two vLeafs—one vSpine and one vLeaf on each host.
Cisco ACI vPod management should be in a separate management cluster from any instance of Cisco ACI Virtual Edge.
● Do Not Reload or Shut Down Both vLeafs and vSpines
We recommended that you do not reload or shut down both the vLeafs and vSpines at same time to avoid issues with endpoint attachment and traffic.
Limitations and Restrictions
● Scalability
For Cisco ACI Virtual Edge scalability information, see the Verified Scalability Guide for Cisco ACI for the relevant Cisco APIC release.
● Hypervisor Availability
Cisco ACI vPod is available only on the VMware ESXi hypervisor.
● Cisco ACI Multi-Site Support
Cisco ACI vPod is not supported for Cisco ACI Multi-Site environments.
● Cisco ACI vPod Deployment
◦ The server where you install Cisco ACI Virtual Edge must have an Intel Nehalem CPU or later. You also must set the cluster Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) to a Nehalem CPU or later. See the knowledge base article Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support (1003212) on the VMware web site.
◦ Only one Cisco ACI Virtual Edge per host is supported.
◦ Removing Cisco ACI Virtual Edge or the ESXi host from the VMware vCenter and then adding it back in is not supported. If you do that, Cisco ACI Virtual Edge loses password, infra VLAN, IP address, and other key configurations. You should instead delete the original Cisco ACI Virtual Edge and deploy a new one.
◦ After you deploy Cisco ACI Virtual Edge, if the Cisco ACI Virtual Edge VM is moved across VMware vCenter, all the configurations that you made during deployment are lost.
◦ We recommend that you install Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs on a dedicated VMware cluster.
● Management Interface IP Address
If you configure a management interface IP address, the Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs must have IPv4 addresses.
● VMware vSphere vMotion Support
Cisco ACI vPod vSpines and vLeafs are not supported for VMware vSphere vMotion.
Note: After you migrate VMs using cross-data center VMware vMotion in the same VMware vCenter, you may find a stale VM entry under the source DVS. This stale entry can cause problems, such as host removal failure. The workaround for this problem is to enable "Start monitoring port state" on the vNetwork DVS. See the KB topic "Refreshing port state information for a vNetwork Distributed Virtual Switch" on the VMware Web site for instructions.
● Remote leaf
Remote leaf is not supported for Cisco ACI vPod in this release.
● VLAN Pool Deletion
The deletion of VLAN pools that are associated to a VMM domain is not supported. You can add a new range of VLANs to the VLAN pool whenever it is required.
● Features Not Supported for Cisco ACI Virtual Edge when It Is Part of Cisco ACI vPod
Cisco ACI Virtual Edge is not supported for the following features when it is part of Cisco ACI vPod:
◦ VMware vSphere Proactive HA
◦ SPAN and ERSPAN
◦ Subnets configured under EPGs
● WAN Traffic Stops when Both vLeafs Are Powered Off
When both vLeafs are powered off, continuous WAN traffic stops. There are no WAN routes on vSpine Council of Oracles Protocol (COOP), and learned WAN endpoints on Cisco ACI Virtual Edge are removed.
● Bridge Domain or VRF Deletion Not Supported with EPG Association
If you want to delete the bridge domain or VRF or change the association, first ensure that there are no EPGs associated with the bridge domain or that any associated EPGs do not contain any endpoints. Otherwise, you may encounter connectivity problems.
Open Issues
Click the bug ID to access the Bug Search tool and see additional information about the bug.
| Bug ID |
Description |
| Physical spine drops redirected traffic when L4-L7 device is on a physical pod and provider and consumer endpoints are in a vPod |
Resolved Issues
There are no resolved issues in this release.
Known Issues
Click the bug ID to access the Bug Search tool and see additional information about the bug.
| Bug ID |
Description |
| Keep microsegmented and base EPGs in same bridge domain for Cisco ACI Virtual Edge when it is part of Cisco ACI vPod |
|
| Traffic loss for 40 seconds on flood traffic upon designated Cisco ACI Virtual Edge failover. |
Known Behaviors
Cisco ACI vPod vSpines Do Not Support OpFlex
Cisco ACI vPod virtual spines (vSpines) currently do not support the use of OpFlex to communicate certain control plane configurations for Cisco ACI vPod GOLF to work. So certain trigger operations result in the removal of WAN routes on vSpines from the GOLF router. Such operations include deletion or addition of a Layer 3 outside network connection (L3Out) EPG and the deletion or addition of a VRF.
A soft BGP reset on the GOLF router (CSR, ASR) is required for routes to be advertised again from GOLF side.
VMware vMotion can Result in Traffic Loss when Using Cisco ASAv
Using VMware vMotion can result in up to 2 minutes of traffic loss after failover when using Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv). The issue can occur when you use ASAv as a service device in high availability (HA) mode with policy-based redirect (PBR) and the active and standby devices switch roles because of a failover.
You can avoid this problem by not using VMware vMotion to migrate the standby device when the roles are switched. If the device needs to be migrated, force a failover so that the primary device becomes active, and then initiate VMware vMotion.
Fault Tolerance Failover Leads to loss of traffic
When failover occurs, the VM is moved to a new Cisco ACI Virtual Edge when it is part of Cisco ACI vPod. Other data VMS try to communicate with the original Cisco ACI Virtual Edge. Traffic recovers when the learned entry times out after 5 minutes.
Related Content
See the Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) page for the documentation.
The documentation includes installation, upgrade, configuration, programming, and troubleshooting guides, technical references, release notes, and knowledge base (KB) articles, as well as other documentation. KB articles provide information about a specific use case or a specific topic.
By using the "Choose a topic" and "Choose a document type" fields of the APIC documentation website, you can narrow down the displayed documentation list to make it easier to find the desired document.
You can watch videos that demonstrate how to perform specific tasks in the Cisco APIC on the Cisco Data Center Networking YouTube channel.
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