Installation Overview

This chapter provides the high-level information on how to install Cisco Catalyst 8000V. Usually, Cisco hardware routers are shipped with the Cisco IOS XE software pre-installed. However, since Cisco Catalyst 8000V is not a hardware-based router, you must download the Cisco IOS XE software from Cisco.com and install the virtual router directly onto the virtual machine. Before you proceed to the installation, first provision the attributes of the VM so that the Cisco Catalyst 8000V software can install and boot.

See the following sections to know about the various installation files and the installation options that are dependent on the hypervisor you have chosen.

Installation Files

The following table specifies the software images that are available for installing Cisco Catalyst 8000V on the supported hypervisors:

Image Type

Hypervisor

Mode

Secure Boot

Sample Filename

bin

ESXi, KVM, AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP

Upgrade (bundle mode)

Upgrade (install mode)

No

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.SPA.bin

iso - Used for installing the software image on the VM

ESXi, KVM

New installation

No

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.iso

ova - used for deploying the OVA template on the VM (in TAR format)

ESXi

New installation

Yes

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.ova

qcow2 - Used for installing the software image in KVM environments.

KVM

New installation

No

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.qcow2

serial.qcow2

KVM

New installation

No

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.efi.qcow2

efi.qcow2

KVM

New installation

Yes

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a.efi.qcow2

serial.efi.qcow2

KVM

New installation

Yes

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a-serial.efi.qcow2

tar.gz

NFVIS

New installation

Yes

c8000v-universalk9.17.04.01a-tar.gz

Note

Although secure boot is supported for certain image types, this functionality is not enabled by default. See VNF Secure Boot to know how to enable secure boot for your hypervisor.

Supported Hypervisors

A hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host machine. While each operating system could have a dedicated use of the host's processor, memory, and other resources, the hypervisor controls and allocates only the required resources to each operating system. This ensures that the operating systems (VMs) do not disrupt each other.

The following are the supported hypervisors for Cisco Catalyst 8000V:

  • VMware ESXi: Cisco Catalyst 8000V runs on the VMware ESXi hypervisor, which runs on a x86 hardware containing virtualization extension. To see the VMware requirements and to learn how to install Cisco Catalyst 8000V in the ESXi environment, see Installing in VMware ESXi Environment.

  • Red Hat KVM: Cisco Catalyst 8000V also runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

  • Public Clouds: Apart from the above-mentioned hypervisors, you can also deploy and use Cisco Catalyst 8000V in Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Alibaba Cloud. See the respective public cloud deployment guides for detailed information.

Virtual Machine Processing Resources

The Cisco Catalyst 8000V is a low-latency application and might not function properly when the processing resources on the host side are over subscribed. By default, most hypervisors support overcommitting the processing resources. However, for Cisco Catalyst 8000V, if you oversubscribe and do not schedule the virtual CPUs (vCPUs) reliably, you could experience packet processing drops, error messages, or system outages.

The Cisco Catalyst 8000V vCPUs must be scheduled by the host hypervisor to run on real physical cores. Each hypervisor has various controls that influence the scheduling of the vCPUs to the physical cores. As a best practice, Cisco recommends that you to use a ratio of 1:1 for the vCPUs to real physical cores.

For detailed information on virtual machine processing resources, see the respective hypervisor tuning guides provided by the hypervisor. Additionally, you can refer to the appropriate hypervisor sections in this guide that describe the possible settings to increase the performance and improve the overall system determinism.

Download the Installation Files

Procedure

Step 1

Go to the Cisco Software Download page.

Step 2

From the Select a Product field at the bottom of the page, search for Cisco Catalyst 8000V.

Step 3

Click the Cisco Catalyst 8000V link and go to the Download page.

Step 4

From the left pane, select the appropriate release. For example, Bengaluru 17.4.1.

Step 5

From the list of available images, click Download or Add to Cart. Follow the instructions for downloading the software.

Note

 

To know which installation file you want to download, see Installation Files.

Guidelines and Limitations

The following list specifies the general guidelines and restrictions before installing a Cisco Catalyst 8000V router in your network:

  • Cisco Catalyst 8000V within a nested VM has not been tested and is not recommended for this reason.

  • If the hypervisor does not support vNIC Hot Add/Remove, do not make any changes to the VM hardware (memory, CPUs, hard drive size, and so on) while the VM is powered on.

  • Gigabit Ethernet0 interface is no longer available. You can designate any interface as the management interface.

  • You can access the Cisco IOS XE CLI either through the virtual VGA console or the console on the virtual serial port. Select the console from the GRUB mode during the first-time installation or change the console using the Cisco IOS XE platform console command after the router boots. For more information, see Booting the Cisco Catalyst 8000V as the VM.

  • If you are running a virtual function on an I350 device, redundancy protocols like HSRP/VRRP are not supported.

  • For .qcow2 files, the image that you choose during installation plays a role in the type of console you can select.

  • vNICs do not support duplex settings in an interface.

  • vNICs do not support auto-negotiations.

  • From Cisco IOS XE 17.9.1, the show license udi command is no longer supported in Cisco Catalyst 8000V.

  • Cisco Catalyst 8000V does not support L2TP functionality including L2TP client and L2TP Network Server (LNS).

  • Although Cisco Catalyst 8000V instances in controller mode supports the 4GB memory configuration, Cisco recommends you use 8GB memory for feature-rich and high-scale environments. This is to prevent high memory utilization issues.


Note
Some hypervisors might not support serial console access. Verify support using your hypervisor documentation.

Where to Go Next

Now that you have downloaded the installation file, you can proceed to the deployment. Based on the hypervisor that you have chosen, the deployment procedures vary.

See the following chapters in this guide to know how to deploy Cisco Catalyst 8000V in the appropriate hypervisor environment:

Deployment in Public Clouds


Note

Refer the following chapters before you proceed with the installation: