Cisco 300-620 - Implementing Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (300-620 DCACI)

The supported physical topology for a Cisco ACI data center network that includes Cisco Nexus 2000 Series 10G fabric extenders is depicted in Option A. This topology illustrates a pair of spine switches connected to leaf switches, which are then connected to the fabric extenders. The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders act as remote line cards for a parent Cisco Nexus switch, extending the network fabric. The topology shown is a spine-leaf architecture, which is a scalable, high-bandwidth framework that is typical in ACI deployments.

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For a detailed understanding of the ACI fabric and supported topologies, you can refer to the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure Design Guide, which provides comprehensive information on design recommendations and deployment models: Cisco ACI Design Guide.

To learn more about the role of fabric extenders in the ACI architecture, the following resource offers insights into how they integrate with the ACI fabric: Understanding the ACI Fabric.

To integrate a new Hyperflex storage cluster into an existing Cisco ACI fabric and manage it with vCenter, the following steps should be taken:

Create a new vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS): This is done within the vCenter interface. The vDS acts as a single virtual switch across all associated hosts in the data center, providing centralized management and monitoring of the network configuration1.

Configure the vDS for the Hyperflex cluster: This involves setting up the correct port groups, VLANs, and uplink profiles to ensure proper network segmentation and performance2.

Enable hardware discovery using a vendor-neutral protocol: This could involve using protocols like LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) or CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol), which are supported by vCenter and can help in identifying and managing physical network devices3.

Integrate the Hyperflex cluster with ACI using the Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC): This involves creating the necessary policies and profiles in ACI to manage the Hyperflex storage traffic effectively4.

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Cisco HyperFlex Systems Installation Guide for VMware ESXi1

Cisco HyperFlex Virtual Server Infrastructure 3.0 with Cisco ACI 3.2 and VMware vSphere 6.52

How to Set Up Networking with vSphere Distributed Switches - VMware Docs3

Tutorial: How to integrate HyperFlex and ACI with VMM (VMware) and UCSM4

When traffic is received from a Layer 3 Out (L3Out) on the ingress leaf switch in a Cisco ACI fabric, the source IP address of the traffic is learned as a remote endpoint. This is because the traffic is entering the ACI fabric from an external network, and the source IP is considered remote to the fabric.