Cisco Programmable Fabric supports an IP fabric with VXLAN being employed as a network overlay and MP-BGP based EVPN address family being used for distribution of host information. MP-BGP-based EVPN address family distributes end host and external network reachability information in the fabric.

Following table shows the minimum hardware and software support required to deploy Cisco Programmable Fabric.

Note

Only Cisco Nexus 5600 Switches are supported for VXLAN. Cisco Nexus 5500 Switches and Cisco Nexus 6000 Series Switches are not supported. For Cisco Programmable Fabric, we recommend at least one multiprotocol BGP route-reflector (RR). As an integrated function of Cisco Programmable Fabric, the following platforms can support this function: Cisco Nexus 5600 Switches with Cisco NX-OS 7.3(0)N1(1) and later releases.

Cisco Programmable Fabric has the following guidelines and limitations:

Guidelines

• To ensure that the day-zero POAP device provisioning does not interfere with other DHCP servers on your network, we recommend that you use a dedicated VLAN and subnet for the fabric management network. Cisco DCNM and the Ethernet out-of-band/inband ports of the Cisco Programmable Fabric switches (mgmt0 or Ethernet front panel ports) reside in the fabric management network. You have the option to interconnect the fabric management network with your existing out-of-band management network.

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I5(2), inband POAP and management are available for Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches and Cisco NX-OS 7.1(2) on Cisco DCNM with 10.1(2)ST(1) Cisco DCNM templates.

• Cisco Programmable Fabric supports POAP via the out-of-band and inband network, which means POAP via the management interface (mgmt0) and front panel Ethernet ports.

• For Cisco Programmable Fabric, auto-configuration feature is the reachability to the LDAP/network database through inband and as well through out-of-band support.

• Every Cisco Programmable Fabric switch that is managed by Cisco DCNM via out-of-band or inband network must be connected to the fabric management network through the Ethernet out-of-band or inband network.

• A console connection for fabric management is recommended but not required for Cisco Programmable Fabric.

• If Cisco DCNM is your repository server for POAP, you must upload the Cisco NX-OS kick start and system images to Cisco DCNM using the Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) or Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

Limitations

• The fabric management network can support only one Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. You can either use the DHCP server in Cisco DCNM or a designated DHCP server, but not both.

• You can create a VRF instance using a controller (Cisco APIC or Cisco DCNM) or using the CLI. If you want to delete a VRF instance that was created using a controller, you have to use the controller for deletion too, and not the CLI. However, for a controller created VRF instance, you can add VRF attributes such as route-map, etc, through the CLI.