VDC (Virtual Device Context) - Nexus Switches

Here we'll talk about one of the most popular features of the Nexus environment, VDC (Virtual Device Context). The term VDC refers to creating a logical boundary or kind of partition within a physical chassis.

In this example, I am talking about my switch which is Nexus 7k which has 10 modules and almost 100 plus ports of ten gig capacity. Instead of giving a Nexus 7k to a single customer, you can utilize this concept of VDC and divide it into multiple chassis for each customer. For them, this device will look like a separate chassis.

If this is the switch, I can create three more switches out of it with the same functionality. It is only necessary for me to manage those from the main VDC or the default VDC or the actual chassis.

As you can see, I currently have three VDCs created.

Nexus_Test1 # show vdc
Switchwide mode is m1 f1 m1xl f2 m2xl f2e f3

vdc_id vdc_name             state        mac         type    lc
------ --------             -----        ----------     ---------  ------
1    Nexus_Test1                active       74:88:dc:22:23:e1  Admin     None
2    Nexus_Test2                active       74:88:dc:22:23:e2  Ethernet  f2 f2e f3
3    Nexus_Test3                active       74:88:dc:22:23:e3  Ethernet  f2 f2e

The maximum number of VDCs you can create depends on the supervisor engine you have. If you have SUP1, you can create up to four VDCs, including your default VDC. The default VDC is always VDC 1. You can create up to 5 VDCs if you have SUP2.

The SUP2 in my scenario allows me to create up to five VDCs.

1  0   Supervisor Module-2         N7K-SUP2E     
2  0   Supervisor Module-2         N7K-SUP2E    

To make those switches work efficiently, we only need to move the ports to the respective VDC. I can move 10 ports from default VDC to the respective VDC if customer A requires 10 ports.

vdc_id: 1 vdc_name: Nexus_Test1 interfaces:

vdc_id: 2 vdc_name: Nexus_Test2 interfaces:
    Ethernet3/1      Ethernet3/2      Ethernet3/3
    Ethernet3/4      Ethernet3/5      Ethernet3/6


vdc_id: 3 vdc_name: Nexus_Test3 interfaces:
    Ethernet3/13     Ethernet3/14     Ethernet3/15
    Ethernet3/16     Ethernet3/41     Ethernet3/42

In addition to having a separate CPU, each VDC will also have a separate control plane. Thus, from the user's perspective, he will think that he is connected to a different switch named Test-2, but he does not realize that this switch is part of the actual physical chassis named Nexus_Test-1.

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